Sheppardology 101
by YodaKitty
Summary: Ever wondered what makes Sheppard act the way he does? Use of a different form of therapy to stave off a break down leads to some unexpected insights into the mind of our favorite flyboy.
1. The assignment

**Title:** Sheppardology 101

**Author: **Yodakitty (aka me)

**Rating: **M (mostly for later chapters)

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it, with the exception of inspiration pulled from a couple of other stories, to whose authors I will give credit in the chapters where that applies.

**Summary:** Ever wondered what makes Sheppard act the way he does? Use of a different form of therapy to stave off a break down leads to some interesting insights into the mind of our favorite flyboy.

A/N: This is my first story, which I am only posting at the prompting of a friend who has been kind enough to edit this for me. Thanks hon! With that in mind, things like spacing may be a little off at first, while I adjust to exactly how this works. Reviews/praise/constructive criticism is always welcome. Feedback is like crack to my muse, honestly. Flames will be laughed at and fed to the plot bunnies to fuel further projects along the same lines.

* * *

Chapter 1

_I don't do journals,_ John thought, staring at the blank notebook in front of him. _This is silly. Besides, I'm fine. How many times must I tell people that? Seriously! What is this supposed to prove anyway?_

"It's not supposed to prove anything really, John," came the unexpected answer. John hadn't realized he'd asked that last question out loud.

_Oops._ "So much for internal dialog, I guess. Sorry about that. Didn't realize I'd started thinking out loud there." John replied, looking sheepishly at Carson, who was curled up on the bed reading…John didn't know what, exactly. "But okay, so the journal isn't supposed to prove anything per se. Fine. What is the purpose of it then? And, you know, why do I have to keep one?" John was being petulant and knew it, but still, it was the principal of the thing, right? It was bad enough Carson knew about the damn thing -if it hadn't been his idea to start with-, but God help him if his men found out, or God forbid, McKay found out about it. It was a scenario John really didn't want to dwell on.

Carson set down whatever journal he'd been reading, looking over at John, who was actually pouting now. "You have to keep it because the alternative is a series of face-to-face sessions with Dr. Heightmeyer." John made a face at this. "Aye, that's what I thought. As to the purpose of it, consider it an alternative form of therapy."

"Therapy for what? I'm fine. Really," came the reflexive answer as John pushed his chair away from the desk, using the current conversation to stall having to actually deal with the journal in question.

It was, as most people knew, John's answer to everything. He was fine, even when he clearly wasn't. Most of the time he could make it believable. A lot of that, Carson had discovered in the almost two years they'd been together, was an act. Much like the brain-dead flyboy routine was an act to hide how bright John really was. Some of it was understandable, aimed at keeping morale up among the rest of the expedition. It didn't look good if the military commander had a nervous breakdown or something. That was just part of the job sometimes, unfortunately. That part of it wasn't really what the current project was designed for. Really it was designed as a way to approach this apparent death wish of John's.

The journal, despite what John may think, was actually Dr. Heightmeyer's idea. She had noticed the warning signs of a death wish both in some of John's recent missions and in his last psych evaluation. Which was worse then it sounded, since it was John, who was usually better at hiding his thoughts and feelings then that. That it was showing through at all was a fair indication of just how bad he was.

Carson sighed, mostly as a response to the reflexive answer. "No, love, you're not." he said quietly. It was an even worse sign when John didn't try to argue the point. The answer really had been pure reflex. "What the journal is for, ultimately, is to use as a space to write whatever comes to mind. You've already made it clear you don't want to talk about whatever is bothering you. This way, you don't have to, at least, not directly." Carson fought the urge to sigh again. That was badly worded, but there really didn't seem to be a good way to phrase it.

"Translation: this is a way to deal with whatever psych issues are behind this death wish you all have decided I apparently have, without having to actually talk to a shrink about it," John stated with less bitterness then Carson was sure he felt.

"Bluntly put, but yes," Carson replied, kissing his boyfriend softly. "We're not doing this to be mean, you know, John."

It was the pilot's turn to sigh. "I know. It's just that, I don't know, it's like admitting there's something wrong, even indirectly like that, feels like a sign of weakness or something. Or…"

"Or like you've failed?" Carson filled in what he knew was really bothering John about this.

"Yeah. Sounds stupid, I know, and I don't know why it's like that, but it's like admitting I screwed up and now there's something wrong with me." John fidgeted a bit, snapping his mouth shut and wondering when it had come about that he'd started talking without thinking like that. The little voice in the back of his mind that always seemed to sound like his father was screaming at him that he was admitting too much, to shut up before he made it worse. How stupid could he possibly be to admit to such things? The voice went on along those lines. It was why he'd decided it sounded like his father. He'd heard such things a lot growing up.

Carson watched the pain and fear in John's eyes, mixed with flashes of other emotions he couldn't quite place, wishing he knew what was going through the pilot's mind. Abruptly John stood up and started pacing across the length of the room. Granted, the room wasn't all that large, so it wasn't like he was going very far, but the pacing was never a good sign. Carson let him pace for a while before catching his wrist when he passed close enough to reach, tugging on it until John gave in and sprawled out on the bed, with John's head resting on Carson's chest, nestled as close as possible without actually completely laying on the other man. For being as tall as he was, it was amazing how small a space John could curl into if he wanted to. It wasn't until then, however, that Carson realized John was shaking. Automatically he started stroking John's hair, much the same way one would a frightened child. He'd discovered a while ago that this had much the same effect on the pilot as it did with a child, though he had no idea why. Just the comfort of human contact, he guessed. Humans were not by nature solitary creatures, though John did try.

"Sh, hush, love, easy. It's alright," Carson murmured even as John finally stopped shaking.

"Sorry, I don't know where that came from," John said softly, refusing to meet Carson's eyes.

"It's alright," Carson replied, pressing a soft kiss to John's forehead, "but you can see why we might be worried about ye?" He asked, his accent sliding a little thicker, as it did when he was upset.

"Yeah, I guess. Still, I don't know if I can," John answered, still not looking up.

"Cliché as it is, ye'll never know until you try luv," Carson stated, ruffling the pilot's hair, still amazed by the fact you could actually make it stand up more than usual if you tried hard enough.

John made a face at his lover. "That is cliché. True, perhaps, but still," John offered a slight smile before adopting a decent imitation of General O'Neill, "you know how I feel about clichés."

Carson smiled. Clearly John was feeling better, at least somewhat. "Aye, I know. Still, not the point."

John turned serious again. "I know that, too. Only you and Doc Heightmeyer will know, right?"

Carson bit his lip a moment before answering. "That depends on how it goes. You know that."

"Yeah, if it looks like something that might be a security risk then Elizabeth has to be told. I know. Or if it starts looking too much like I'm actually going to follow through with it," John recited the pertinent regulations like a child reciting information memorized for a quiz.

"Aye, but other than that, only Kate and I will see it unless you decide otherwise," Carson said, referring to the possibility of John bringing the rest of his team in on this exercise.

"Yeah, maybe. Not right now though. I- One thing at a time," John replied, still looking distinctly unhappy about the whole idea.

"That's up to you. Whatever you think would work best," The doctor answered reclaiming what he'd been reading earlier, which John now saw was a medical journal of some kind, probably genetics related if he had to guess. The actual title didn't say specifically.

With that, John wandered back over to the desk, still not happy about doing this, but unable to avoid it any longer. Problem was he now had no idea what to write. He wasn't one much given to spilling his guts, even in writing. Especially in writing, where someone could find it later and use it against him. Paranoid habit, yes, but one that had served him well most of his life. Between his father, his ex-wife, and issues like now with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", among other things, it had always been safer not to have any kind of record sitting around that could possibly be found during a surprise inspection or something. Not that Atlantis had such things, generally, but it was an old habit and one he hadn't given much energy to trying to break. With yet another sigh- it seemed to be that kind of day- and generally looking like someone about to field test a taser from the wrong end, John picked the pen back up off the desk, returning to staring at the blank notebook.

_Hi._

_Okay, that seems kind of silly. I feel like I should introduce myself or something. Which is also kind of pointless, I guess. If you're reading this, you already know who I am and why I'm doing this, so there's really no point in stating the obvious, now is there? Already feels like some sort of written AA meeting or something. Alright, there has to be some kind of logical way to set about this. Preferably without revealing all of my darkest secrets and such. Most of them are things you don't really want to know anyway. Spending one's entire adult life in the military will do that. Which leads us to the primary problem: what am I going to write about then? Since I have to do this in any case. Mandatory and all that. There's a concept I've never really understood: mandatory therapy. Isn't there a contradiction in that? Just saying._

_Well, in any event, since this is supposed to be about whatever-it-is that has apparently screwed up my brain pretty good, chances are upcoming topics will include my family (the actual blood variety, mostly), for what little there is to actually say about them and my ex-wife. (This should be of interest to Dr. Heightmeyer. You were a marriage counselor before coming here, right? Maybe you can pinpoint where that marriage went wrong. Have fun with that.) Not right now, though. Maybe later. Or, you know, maybe not. Not sure it's actually relevant, after all. Oh, my time in the ever so lovely hellhole that is Afghanistan will also likely come up. Most of it's in my record already though. If you really want to know, just look it up for crying out loud. It's not as though I could stop you. At least I don't think they sealed that part. Security clearance necessary to be here, it wouldn't matter if they did._

_On a different note, why am I doing this by hand anyway? I know that was part of the instructions, but wouldn't, I don't know, e-mail or something be easier? Just a thought there. Though I get the feeling that restriction was Carson's idea, probably to make it harder for me to edit this before anyone else sees it. Damn mind reader tendencies. Note to self: check office for white out. I think I still have some. Though all my reports are typewritten, so maybe not. Before anyone gets all upset about that, it's as much for spelling corrections and the like as actually editing content. I don't often write much without use of spell-check and am too lazy to look up spellings. Not that I guess it matters. How much could a few misspelled words tell you about my mental state? Somehow, I don't think lack of being able to spell has much to do with a death wish or much of anything else you may decide I have._

_Well, this is generally going nowhere fast. Told you it would. There's a reason I don't do things like this you know. Other then sheer laziness, of course. You really didn't expect me to start pouring out my soul into this thing this quickly, did you? I feel kind of sorry for you if you did. Really should know better than that. How many times do I have to tell you people that I'm fine before it sinks through? Okay, so I've taken suicide missions a couple of times. Under the circumstances I had what other choice? To order someone else to die instead? Yeah, ok, no. Not going to happen. Doesn't necessarily mean I want to die, just that I won't point blank order someone else to do so. This is a bad thing? Didn't think so. Granted, I've learned that there a number of definitions of suicide mission, depending on who you talk to. Ramming a jumper with a tactical nuke in the back into a hive ship is kind of an obvious one, I'll admit. Apparently, ill-advised rescue missions behind enemy lines and flying in white out conditions in Antarctica also count. The latter was also generally part of a rescue op, just to clarify. It wasn't like I was doing it for fun or anything. I'm cocky, yes, not stupid. Besides, flying in that crap isn't exactly a fun way to spend the day. Alright, so ultimately I might have taken the concept of we don't leave our people behind to extremes (almost at the cost of my career at one point), but why bother saying it if you're not going to follow through? Actions speak louder than words and all that. We don't leave our people behind. Integrity first, Service before self, Excellence in all we do. A bunch of pretty sounding words, really._

_Wow, have I really done more than a page of this nonsense? Damn. Well, that should be enough to appease the dictators for the moment. I will undoubtedly have to do more of this later, but for now I have sparring practice to get to, Marines to throw around the gym, so I suppose that's all for now._

Setting the pen down, John flipped the notebook shut, simultaneously stretching the kinks out of his back. He was actually early for sparring, but he was going to have some serious stretching to do before practice started and it was better if the Marines didn't see that part. Bad enough a fair number of them were about half his age, or so it seemed. _Geez, Earth's best and brightest are a bunch of kids. Damn._ John thought as he listened to his back crack in more places then could possibly be healthy. _Okay, so sparring with Ronon already this morning was probably not the best idea. Too late now._ Glancing across the room he realized Carson was asleep and apparently had been for a while. With a shrug John decided there was no harm in leaving him there. Shaking his head he gathered his gym bag and headed down to get a jump start on getting stretched out before the Marines got there.

* * *

A/N: I have the rest of the story completed already, but further posting will depend entirely on reviews. So please, pretty please, press the pretty review button! (yes, I will continue to be a review whore for a while. I'm new at this and this is honestly pretty nerve wracking to do.)


	2. First attempt

**Title:** Sheppardology 101

**Author: **Yodakitty (aka me)

**Rating: **M

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Spoilers**: None that I can think of...'Outcast' of you squint really hard and look at it just right...

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it, with the exception of inspiration pulled from a couple of other stories, to whose authors I will give credit in the chapters where that applies. Oh, and I don't own _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _either, though there is a short reference to it in this chapter.

**Summary:** Ever wondered what makes Sheppard act the way he does? Use of a different form of therapy to stave off a break down leads to some interesting insights into the mind of our favorite flyboy.

* * *

-Several hours later-

_Ack, I am getting too old for this- or they're too young. Let's go with that,_ John thought, rolling his shoulders. Even with the mats and everything for padding, getting thrown that many times hurt. _Next order of business: nice, long, hot shower. _Nothing else was going to be of any help for his knotted up, now very sore muscles at the moment. Unless he could talk Carson into a massage… if he was even still there. It had been several hours he noticed now that he bothered to look at his watch. No, he decided; double checking to make sure he'd read the time correctly. Carson had gone on shift about an hour ago and wouldn't get off until dinner, which wasn't for another four hours yet. John, on the other hand, was free for the rest of the day, having had the early morning shift today. He couldn't sleep past dawn anyway, so there was no reason not to.

Walking back in to his quarters (yes, they were actually still his, they weren't living together, yet anyway), he found himself glancing almost nervously over at the notebook he'd been writing in earlier. It was still closed and didn't appear to have moved from where he'd left it before heading to the gym. For reasons he couldn't quite place that made him feel better. Strange to get so nervous about it though, as the only one who could have possibly read it at this point was Carson, who was going to read it eventually anyway, so what difference did it make if he read it now or later? Tabling the issue for later, John decided to focus on getting that shower instead.

Almost two hours later, feeling mostly human again and with his muscles not protesting nearly so much, John settled on the bed to try and decide what he was going to do to occupy himself until dinner. Usually with this much time to kill he'd go bother McKay in his lab. However, the scientist was off-world with another team, Major Lorne's this time, helping them with some Ancient tech in the ruins they'd been sent to explore that was too large to bring back to the city. They were due back shortly. Dinner was McKay's particular request to the kitchen staff, some kind of steak type thing, and it would take a Wraith attack to keep him from it, John was certain. It took some time before he realized the longer he sat there, the more often his eyes would drift back to the notebook on the desk. He still had no idea what he was actually supposed to be writing about. It seemed to him like they were asking for his thoughts on life, the universe, and everything. The answer to which, 42, being much simpler then what they were really trying to get at: the internal workings of his mind. A topic he had never spent much time dwelling on, mostly intentionally. Well, if it was his thoughts they wanted, then by all means. For all the good it would do them. It wasn't like he knew anything of any great importance anyway. He was neither bright enough nor important enough to know anything that one or both doctors didn't already know. _What the hell, maybe if I play along and write more then they expect they'll realize this really isn't necessary and life can return for what passes for normal. _Even as he thought it, John realized it wouldn't work. Maybe if it had only been Dr. Heightmeyer he was dealing with he could have gotten away with BSing something, but Carson knew him too well to let him slide with that. It was something John dearly wanted to know when and how it had happened; it was really kind of scary sometimes. Always before he'd been able to keep his distance from everyone around him, well, most everyone. There were the occasional exceptions. _Mitch, Dex, Holland, hell, Nancy even. You'd think I would have learned not to get emotionally attached to people by now. It never ends well, _John reflected bitterly. _Too late now, I guess. Ah well, time to BS more ammunition for the resident shrink to play with I suppose._ After a moment's internal debate, John decided his muscles weren't so relaxed as to take sitting in the relatively uncomfortable chair at the desk, retrieved the notebook and pen from the desk and settled back down on the bed, leaning back against the headboard and balancing the notebook on his knees. His handwriting would probably suffer for writing this way, but it wasn't all that fantastic to begin with so he doubted anyone would notice.

_Hello again._

_I've really got to stop doing that. Has it occurred to anyone that doing this is an excellent recipe for starting to talk to yourself? I mean, really, that's kind of what this is if you think about it. Is it possible for therapy to actually drive a patient insane? Has that ever actually happened? Now that would be weird. Not life-sucking alien vampires weird, but still. Did that seriously say Gandhi's hat? Did Gandhi even wear a hat? No, it actually said Gandhi's Salt March. Don't ask me how I got Gandhi's hat out of that. Reading to fast, I suppose, and not really reading closely. I'm playing with iTunes while I'm doing this, don't mind me. It's too quiet in here for some reason. So I have a podcast running in the background. 'Stuff you missed in history class' it's called. Downloaded it while we were on Earth the last time. Wonderful use of the SGC's Internet. There's another one, 'Stuff you should know', had an entire 20 minute podcast on how Delta Force works. Interesting stuff. Completely off topic, but I thought I would throw that out there. (Keep in mind, I was told to write whatever came to mind. Those were possibly not the best instructions in the world for this exercise. :P)_

_Okay, getting back to being slightly less off topic- is there really such a thing as off topic for this? - I suppose I should point out that I really don't know what to say. I don't remember if I mentioned that last time. Even if, for argument's sake, we go with the assumption that I in fact have a death wish, or whatever, it's not exactly a secret that I suck at things like this. Well, usually that applies to verbally dealing with emotions and the like, but I'm quickly finding that writing is not all that much easier. So this is probably going to wander pretty aimlessly for a while. Already has been, so that should be fairly obvious, but I thought I should throw out there that I'm really not just doing it to be a pain in the ass._

_First tidbit about my family: we don't talk about emotions, feelings, or anything that may remotely be controversial in any way. And that would be controversial as defined by my father, which is generally a different kettle of fish entirely from the definition that the rest of the world uses. Much broader, more inclusive definition, generally. He's always been a man with a plan for everything. Plans for the future of the business, plans for how investments would grow and what direction they would take. Plans for exactly how my life and my brother's would play out. My father's idea of teenage rebellion was going to Stanford instead of Harvard. I know this from experience- as you may recall from my record, I graduated from Stanford. Nor was that the first time I'd had the gall to fly in the face of my father's carefully laid out plans. It's also general knowledge by now that I haven't spoken to my father in years. You're probably starting to get the idea why that might be. Anything that fell outside of my father's plans was strictly forbidden. No exceptions. Go to Harvard, major in math, join MENSA, eventually get a master's and a Ph. d. in math at least, and preferably a second in business, jointly run the family business with my brother. This was the general layout of my father's plan for me. Bits that can be pulled from my general personnel file, I would guess (I really haven't looked at it in a while), I do actually have a bachelor's in mathematics and tested for MENSA and passed. Never joined though. It was enough for me to know I could if I wanted to. I'm generally considered to be a closet geek, yes, but that's all I am. I really am a jock for the most part. Much rather play with my expensive toys, as McKay calls them, then sit around and debate the merits of various mathematical theorems and such (unless it's just for shock value in talking to McKay. It's occasionally worth it to see his face when the goon does geek tricks.). But that was as far as it went in terms of following my father's plans. To say that he was less than happy would be a rather massive understatement. One can likely also see how my 'fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants' methodology would not sit well with someone as methodical as my father._

_Okay, that was weird. I must be more tired than I thought. For the record, I still don't like this. Analyze this: I just reread most of what I wrote this time and my first instinct is to burn it, now, before anyone else sees it. Paranoia? Maybe. Holdover learned behavior from childhood? You're probably getting the feeling that's also a distinct possibility. It is, again, not any great secret I have trust issues. Most of the city knows this. (Though that's a bit like saying our relationship is the biggest open secret on Atlantis. Everyone knows, but doesn't talk about it, at least in any official terms.) *sigh* Make of that what you will. That is, realistically, what this is for is it not? In any case, it's…later then I thought. Almost time for dinner. Wow, that took longer than anticipated. Whatever. Steak, or the Pegasus equivalent thereof, tonight. Time to see about getting Carson out of his lab. Honestly, the irony of having to remind the medical doctor to eat. Or sleep, for that matter. Life is just full of little ironic bits like that._

John sat and stared at the notebook for a long moment. He hadn't been kidding when he said his first instinct was to rip out the last page or so he'd just written and burn them. With a conscious effort he closed the notebook and set it back on the desk, intact, and left to see about grabbing Carson for dinner before he could change his mind.

* * *

A/N: As always, reviews are love, and love makes the next chapter appear faster. Many thanks to those who have reviewed/favorited the story so far. :) Cookies for all! To everyone else, thank you for reading, of course, but if you could please, please take a moment to press that little review button at the bottom there...would be much appreciated!

-Yodakitty


	3. Explanations and confessions

**Title:** Sheppardology 101

**Author: **Yodakitty (aka me)

**Rating: **M

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Spoilers**: None that I can think of

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it, with the exception of inspiration pulled from a couple of other stories, to whose authors I will give credit in the chapters where that applies.

**Summary:** Ever wondered what makes Sheppard act the way he does? Use of a different form of therapy to stave off a break down leads to some interesting insights into the mind of our favorite flyboy.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed/favorited this story! You all have no idea how happy that makes me! I try to send individual messages to everyone as the site gets around to telling me about new reviews and the like as well, but all the same. I apologize if these first few chapters are moving a bit slowly, the true whump will begin in the next chapter or so, just bear with me. This is more the general angst part of the story, after all. :) And while mostly it's Shep being whumped on, I couldn't resist picking on Carson a bit as well...

* * *

-Later that night-

Dinner was, thankfully, an uneventful affair. It was about the only time of day one could actually get the entire dysfunctional, surrogate family of sorts together in one place. Barring emergency situations, naturally they were all present for those. It was nice to have everyone together at one time without the threat of imminent death hanging over them once in a while. Continuing with this train of thought, John wondered at what point he'd started thinking of them as family. Well, except Carson of course. That was a different can of worms all together. Elizabeth, Teyla, Rodney, Ronon, when exactly had they become his family? He wasn't quite sure, only knowing that it had happened a while ago. He was starting to think of Dr. Keller, Jennifer, that way as well. That was a fairly new thing, but she was still fairly new to the city, so that made sense. He was pretty sure both Rodney and Ronon had crushes on her though. He didn't know that, but if he was right it was going to be an interesting situation to watch as it continued to unfold. _Ack, stupid journal. I'm thinking too hard about this. It is what it is; just let it go at that, _John scolded himself.

Wandering back into his quarters, alone once again, John decided that, while it was still kind of early, it had been a long, strangely tiring day and he was going to bed. At this point he had no idea what Carson was planning on doing about sleeping arrangements for the night, but it was almost certainly a moot point until later. Like wee hours of the morning, later. Apparently something had occurred to him during dinner concerning whatever it was he was working on right now and he had several lengthy tests he wanted to run while he was thinking about it. _Why did I get mixed up with a geek again? Always with the having just one more thing to test, just one more thing. Reminds me of Uncle from the animated Jackie Chan Adventures. 'And one more thing….' Yeah, one more thing, that ends up being about a dozen things. Oh, well. If I don't see him before about, oh, 0300 or so, I'll at least go see if he's still in the lab. Not going to bother him if he just went back to his quarters instead, just so long as he's not still working. _John decided as he was getting ready for bed. Glancing around the room one last time in a habitual perimeter check of sorts, his eyes fell on the notebook, sitting innocently on the desk. After taking a moment to once again fight down the impulse to burn or otherwise destroy the thing, John laid down so his back was to the desk and let sleep claim him.

* * *

It was, in fact, about 2:30 am when Carson came back, having left the last of the tests running on his laptop. He would deal with more at a more reasonable hour of the morning. Despite the late, or rather, early hour, he found he couldn't sleep, though he didn't know exactly why. Which is what had led him to wandering to John's quarters rather then returning to his own. While their relationship was something of an open secret within the city, it still wasn't the safest thing to do, being seen around the Colonel's quarters at such a strange hour. It had only become as much of an open secret as it was after Rodney had caught them out once. Most anyone else they could have convinced to keep quiet about it, but Rodney, bless his pointed little head, had the biggest mouth of anyone Carson had ever met. It took less than a week after Rodney found out for news to spread across the city. In most cases people had written it off as someone's pet rumor and ignored it. Others, who had had their suspicions before then, had just given both men knowing looks for a while and left it at that. Thankfully, that had actually been the full extent of the reaction to it. Carson honestly couldn't think of a time when John had been more nervous than he had been after Rodney had found out about them. And this from a man who got shot at for a living. It had only reinforced Carson's opinion that he would never truly understand the military.

Entering the room, Carson wasn't surprised to find John already asleep. It was not quite 3:00 am, after all. Seeing this, however, apparently wasn't enough to fix whatever it was that was keeping him from likewise getting some sleep. Trying to navigate the room from memory in the dark without tripping over anything, Carson found himself over by the desk. There was slightly more light here, even at night. The only window in the room was on the wall immediately behind the desk, so what little moonlight there was tonight was currently illuminating said piece of furniture and everything on it, which actually wasn't much.

It had always surprised Carson that, for someone who had travelled as much as John had the pilot really didn't have much in the way of material possessions. Some of that, he reasoned, could be explained away as John not wanting to have to continually pack and unpack much every time he was assigned to a different base. But it wasn't just the lack of the usual knickknacks that most people accumulated when they travelled, it was the almost complete lack of…personality, not only of the contents of the desk but of the entire room. No pictures of anyone or anywhere from back on Earth, no diploma, not that that was really a surprise in dealing with John. The only obvious personal belongings in the room were the surf board that was too big to fit in the closet, the Johnny Cash poster that seemed to have travelled everywhere John had ever been, _War and Peace_ sitting on the bedside table, a set of golf clubs sitting in the corner, and a smaller picture of Evel Knievel on the wall beside the bed. There was also a skateboard and a guitar tucked away in the closet where they were out of the way, but that was about it. Really, with the exception of the Cash poster, particularly identifiable only because John's love of Johnny Cash music was fairly well known, the room could have belonged to just about anyone. Even the laptop on the desk wasn't really John's; it actually belonged to the expedition, as did a fair number of the laptops and things in the city. Strangely enough, the contents of the laptop were actually more personalized then the rest of the room.

Shaking his head, Carson realized none of this was solving the question of what was keeping him awake, at least, not directly enough to actually fix his current state of insomnia. Something was bothering him, and in all likelihood it had something to do with John. That was about all he knew at the moment. Seeing as on any given day that could encompass a rather wide range of worries and concerns, it was a less then helpful definition. _The peculiar side-effects of dating a soldier. Wasn't fully aware chronic insomnia was quite so high on the list. Probably has a lot to do with dating the biggest trouble magnet soldier in the city in particular, _Carson mused. But in spite of that, he knew he wouldn't trade it for anything. He was quickly coming to the conclusion he really did love John, the pilot's tendency to alternately inspire headaches and grey hairs notwithstanding. He hadn't actually said as much to John yet, partly due to never quite knowing exactly where John stood. Too many ways it could go wrong, most of them ending in losing John. _Dwelling on that definitely not going to help the insomnia. Moving on, _Carson thought, pulling his attention back to the moonlit desk in front of him. Spotting the notebook John had been writing in earlier, Carson debated whether or not it would help, well, either of them really, if he went ahead and read it now. As it did directly relate to John's health he was going to read it eventually anyway. He knew Dr. Heightmeyer had told John he had a week to get started, and then she wanted to see it. The current plan was that it would continue like that for as long as this therapy program ended up lasting, with John free to write whatever he wanted in the journal, only bound by periodic check-ins to see how he was doing with it, if there were any questions in particular he wanted to address, that kind of thing. Carson guessed that, in addition to seeing if there were any questions or concerns John wanted to bring up in person (as unlikely as that was), Kate would also likely give written responses to any questions and concerns raised in the journal itself. John had mentioned something of the kind earlier, though Carson couldn't tell if the pilot was guessing, or if Kate had actually told him she would do so.

Finally deciding it was not knowing what was in the journal that was keeping him awake, as high school as that sounded. Carson quietly picked up the notebook and made use of one of the only perks to the quarters John had taken, the attached balcony. This way, he reasoned, he could read and not have to risk turning the lights up in the room and waking John. There wasn't a lot of moonlight tonight, but that was of course relative to the fact that this planet had several moons. Two of them were out at the moment, which provided enough light to read by. Relaxing into one of the collapsible chairs they had moved out on the balcony some time ago, Carson settled in for what was almost certainly going to be an interesting read.

* * *

What Carson hadn't noticed in the midst of all this was that John had actually been awake the whole time. Combat reflexes and all that, he'd woken up when the door opened. He wasn't entirely sure why he hadn't said anything to let Carson know he was awake. _Maybe I was kind of hoping this would happen, that if I let him keep thinking I was sleeping, he would go ahead and read the damn journal and then I wouldn't have to worry about that much of it anymore, _John mused as he watched through the window. Truly he did feel slightly better now, actually knowing Carson had already seen everything he'd written thus far. Whether or not he would still feel that way in as little as 15 minutes to half an hour from now, at the outside, depended on Carson's reactions. John was still dreading that part.

Roughly 15 minutes later according to John's internal clock, Carson finished reading and/or analyzing what John had written over the course of, well it was the day before at this point, actually, and John was getting worried. Granted, Carson still thought he was asleep, but John had kind of expected some sort of reaction all the same. So the fact that he was just sitting quietly, looking out over the ocean was making John nervous. After several more minutes like this, John wandered out onto the balcony, doing a decent imitation of someone who had only just woken up a couple minutes ago.

"Hey, when'd you come back?" John asked, startling Carson from his thoughts.

"Hey yourself. Not too long ago, really. Half an hour, maybe. Sorry if I woke you," came the almost sheepish answer. Carson looked for all the world like a kid who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar, John decided.

"Hm. Nah, it's alright. Thought I heard something a little while ago, wrote it off as paranoia mostly. Hearing things seems to come along with being professionally paranoid, after all," John replied with a slight self-deprecating laugh. "So what're you doing out here at this hour anyway? It's a little after three in the morning, in case you hadn't noticed." There was a definite note of fond exasperation to this last observation.

Carson bit his lip in a way John had learned some time ago meant he was about to say something he was fairly sure John wasn't going to like. "Just, um, doin' some readin', that's all," he said quickly and with a slightly thicker accent then had been present just moments before.

"It couldn't wait until morning? Or at least a more decent hour of the morning?" John asked, continuing to feign ignorance.

"Yes. No. I-" Carson sighed, using the pause to gather badly scattered thoughts. "For reasons I couldnae quite put a finger on I couldnae sleep and somehow I ended up wanderin' down here and I shouldn't have read it without lettin' you know first but you were already asleep and I know it's been a long couple of weeks for you so I really didnae want to wake you up and-"

Honestly, John was fighting not to laugh. Not that he would ever admit it out loud, but Carson was cute when was flustered like this. Instead he simply shook his head, pressing finger to Carson's lips to silence the rambling. "Whoa, hold on. I'm slightly concerned now, if only because you were starting to sound like Rodney there for a minute. Breathe. Back up. Slow down, and try that again. What are you talking about?"

Without really thinking about it, Carson did as he was told, taking a deep breath before trying again to explain what he'd been doing. "The journal, luv. That's what I'm talking about. I know I should have asked before I read it, seeing as Kate said you had until the end of the week before checking in with her about it, but I didn't want to wake you to ask. As daft as it probably sounds not knowing was making me nervous, hence the not being able to sleep and ending up here, possibility of being seen by patrols be damned." John chuckled at this. For some reason, he had always found it funny when Carson cursed. It was largely because of this that the Scot didn't do so very often. At least not in English and not while John was around.

Sobering, John thought a moment before deciding it was for the best to tell the truth at this point. "Honestly, I'm kind of glad you did." John held up a hand to forestall whatever comment Carson had been about to make to that. "Just hear me out, okay?" John said softly, obviously nervous about something. "Snarking about having to write the damn thing aside, it has given me time to at least start thinking about things. Time I wasn't looking for or that I particularly wanted, but I suppose that was part of the point. While it hasn't led to any ground-breaking revelations, as you may have noticed," he continued, waving a hand at the journal in question, "I did realize one thing. I don't really care what most people think of me, most of the time. In this case, I'm not really all that worried about what Heightmeyer thinks, outside of the possibility of being grounded because of it. I'm not even really all that concerned with what Elizabeth would think, presuming she had reason to read it at all. What I realized did concern me was how you were going to react to it. Because of that, I'm actually kind of glad you went ahead and read it without telling me first. Among other things you might have noticed by this point, I have a terribly overactive imagination. If you had asked in advance to read that, well, you can see where this is going," John finished, looking intently at the floor and rubbing the back of his neck, as he had a tendency to do when nervous or embarrassed.

Carson was quiet for what seemed like an eternity, at least to John. Really, it was only a few moments, just long enough to try to process the rather sudden confession of sorts. Part of him, that part that could still manage to think clinically about this, realized that, even as early in the project as it was, progress was already being made in the sense that John was starting to open up more. It wasn't a complete 180 to suddenly spilling all of his secrets and things, but he really hadn't expected it to be. In fact, this was already more progress then he'd been expecting in such a short time. On a more personal level, he realized he was only just now seeing how truly terrified John was of the whole thing. Not only in terms of possible effects on his career, but in more personal terms as well. Watching John at the moment, he looked like he half expected to be laughed at, or hit, or…_Or like someone who expects to be left by their lover, _Carson thought. It was something that really hadn't occurred to him before now. He couldn't, and didn't want to really try to, imagine not having John as a part of his life. Regardless of what ended up coming out during this journal project; it had never occurred to him that there would be a reason to even contemplate leaving. Though apparently it was a possibility John had given a lot of thought to.

Shaking his head to clear it, and realizing that John was still staring at the floor rather intently, Carson stood, automatically stretching out kinks in his back he hadn't realized were there until now. Crossing the short distance to where the pilot was standing, Carson quietly slid one arm around his boyfriend's waist, the other hand coming up to gently tilt John's chin back up, forcing the pilot to meet his eyes. "I'm not going anywhere, John," Carson said softly once he was sure he had John's full attention. Taking a deep breath, he decided to gamble on a confession of his own. "I love you, John. I can't imagine not being with you like this. And I don't want to. No matter what happens, either with this whole journal exercise or otherwise, I will always love you." Carson had to stop there as his throat kept threatening to close up. It was just as well, he really didn't know what else to say at this point anyway. Instead he returned to watching the obviously conflicting emotions play through John's eyes.

After a long moment John took a deep breath, holding it for a moment before releasing it in a long sigh. "I want to believe that, really I do," John said finally, voice barely above a whisper, "and I know you believe it, or you wouldn't have said it. But..." John closed his eyes for a moment as particular lyrics came back to him that seemed to fit the moment, ""you love me but you don't know who I am", not really." He partially quoted from 3 Doors Down 'Let Me Go'. Looking helpless he continued, "So I'm caught. I want to believe what you're telling me, and I love you too, at least it's the closest thing to love I've ever been. I don't really know, I'm not sure I would know what love felt like if it bit me, to tell the truth. What I do know is there's an awful lot about me, both my personal past as well as over the course of my career that you don't know yet. Most of it isn't pretty. I've been a soldier my entire adult life. I'm trained to kill for a living. You can rationalize it any way you like, but at the end of the day the dead or no less dead for the spin and pretty words that are applied to their deaths. I've been asked multiple times, I think you actually asked me not all that long ago, in fact, what I'm really afraid of. Honest answer, right this minute? That much as you believe what you were just saying, and I want to believe it, that that will all go away once you find out even half of the things I've done. What kind of person I really am." Now John was facing the same problem Carson had minutes earlier, only in his case it was the tears he was fighting not to let show that were practically choking him.

Carson shook his head, close to tears himself. Not at what John was saying exactly, though that was part of it, but more at the fact that the pilot really believed what he was saying. Suddenly, a lot of things started to make sense. Not completely, as John was right about one thing at least: there was a lot about him Carson still didn't know the specifics of. But certain things, like the basis, if not the exact cause, of death wish John had been exhibiting. As well as how John had been able to hide it for so long. It was hard to reconcile the relaxed, easygoing, flip sarcastic military commander with the ready smile and silver tongue to match with the vulnerable, frightened, depressed to the point of being suicidal man in front of him, plagued by, at the very least, a sense of self-loathing, likely an inferiority complex, and no self-esteem to speak of. In short, John had a very warped view of himself that he managed to hide extremely well from everyone else. The death wish itself was based in these things, particularly in the self-loathing and seeing himself as evidently both worthless and accordingly expendable.

All of this came to the clinical part of Carson's mind in a matter of moments, even as he was trying desperately to think of what to say. Finally he decided to tackle what was at the moment the easiest part of the whole thing. "John, sweetheart, look at me." John had taken to looking at the floor again, though hazel eyes came back up almost involuntarily at the soft not quite command. "You're right; there is a lot about you I don't know yet. And it's quite likely I'm neither going to like or agree with some parts of it. I knew you were a soldier when I fell in love with you, knew there were going to be things you had done and likely will have to do in the future that I wasn't going to like or agree with. But just because I may not be thrilled with what you've done doesn't mean I won't still love you, John. Though you're not likely going to believe this, the very fact that you're bothered by some of the things I know you've done, the things that have caused some of your more recent nightmares, tells me you're not as bad a person as you clearly think you are. If you were really that bad, losing people, having to kill, wouldn't bother you as much as it does." Carson took a deep breath, knowing that as deeply ingrained as some of these ideas John had were, telling him this now wasn't going to provide an immediate miracle fix.

About then John moved just enough that Carson caught a good look at the pilot's watch, doing a slight double take at what it said. "Oh, bloody hell."

"What? What now?" John asked, startled and a bit frightened by the sudden statement.

"Sh, easy, luv. I just saw what time it is, that's all. Tell me you don't have early shift again today?"

"No, Lorne's got it this morning. Why?" John was getting more confused by the second.

"Good. You'd have to be up in less than an hour if you did," Carson noted. Early shift on Atlantis started about 5am. It was a little after 4 now.

John looked at his watch, wincing a little when he saw the time. "Suppose we should call it a night then, huh?" he asked with a slight smile, which, while a ghost of his usual charming gigawatt smile, was a good sign all the same.

"Suppose so. Though night isn't really the right word for it at this point," Carson observed with a smile of his own.

There was a slightly awkward pause for a moment before John pulled away, claiming the journal from where it was lying in the chair and moving to head back inside and to bed. He paused for a moment when Carson didn't move. "Well, are you coming or not? While you could stay out here, I suppose, it's a little chilly for that," John said, reverting to his usual flip snark, trying for some semblance of normalcy after the conversation earlier.

"Aye, that it is. Oh, crap," Carson said as a thought struck him.

"What? What's wrong?" John asked, cocking his head as he looked at his boyfriend.

"Just realizing it's also a little late to be trying to get back to my quarters without risking running into patrols coming back from the farther parts of the city," he replied, referring to the fact that with shift change coming up, the patrols currently on duty would be heading back to the central parts of the city, closer to where John's quarters were located, from the sections farther out, such as down towards where both the infirmary and Carson's quarters were. The chances of running into a patrol between the two locations and having to field questions about where he'd been at such an odd hour were already fairly high and getting higher by the minute.

"So? So stay here. If anyone asks, tell them I was bitching about my cold not being as much gone as I thought it was, to the point I actually dragged you out of bed to deal with it," John stated, referencing the fairly nasty cold he'd had a week and a half before that had actually only really cleared up completely earlier that week.

Carson laughed, amused by how quickly John had managed to put together an excuse for him to stay. While it was likely driven by the conversation a bit earlier on, the almost childlike look on John's face was, he was sure, calculated to be impossible to say no to. "Okay, okay. For the record, it's still not a good idea, but it's safer than the alternative at this point," Carson conceded.

John simply responded with, "cool," and headed back inside, setting the journal back on the desk as he went.

Rolling his eyes and wondering if he would ever be able to tell John no to anything, Carson followed him inside, pausing a moment before deciding to grab the sleep clothes he had started keeping in a drawer here for just such occasions.

Minutes later they both settled into bed, something of a feat in a bed that was only designed for one person, but manageable, and finally got to sleep. For a few hours at least.

* * *

A/N: And thought this is probably sounding like a broken record, please take a moment to press the pretty review button below...Reviews keep the muse happy, and a happy muse leads to faster updates. :) Well, continuing updates pending how much of a disruption this most recent snow storm actually ends up being. I am so done with winter. Can it be spring now? Please? ;P

-YodaKitty


	4. A slightly different direction

**Title:** Sheppardology 101

**Author: **Yodakitty (aka me)

**Rating: **M

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Spoilers**: None that I can think of

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it, with the exception of inspiration pulled from a couple of other stories, to whose authors I will give credit in the chapters where that applies.

**Summary:** Ever wondered what makes Sheppard act the way he does? Use of a different form of therapy to stave off a break down leads to some interesting insights into the mind of our favorite flyboy.

A/N: Alright, last conversation bit- apologies again if this is taking too long. Pacing was something of a trial for this part of the story. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed/favorited this story! Well, enough from me- onward with the story!

* * *

It was still only 0630 when John woke up again. _Curse not being able to sleep past dawn. It really does suck sometimes. _He thought as he tried to figure out how to get up without either waking Carson or falling off the bed. It was trickier to do some mornings then it was others. This particular morning Carson seemed to be especially determined that John was not getting up without him knowing it. How he could manage this and still be dead-to-the-world asleep was a puzzle John had yet to figure out. After another couple moments consideration, John finally managed to very carefully extract himself from his still sleeping lover and set about most of his normal morning routine, deciding against going running this morning. He wasn't exactly sure why, but something told him it would be a bad idea to not be there when Carson finally did wake up, and between variations on the circuits he used for his morning runs and the ever present possibility of emergency calls and such, it was overall just a better idea if he stayed where he was for the moment. Which left him with a probably a couple hours to kill and not much of anything to do. Looking out the window for a moment, he decided to take advantage of being up in time to watch the sunrise and actually having the luxury to just sit and watch. For all that he was usually up this time of morning the latter luxury was a rare one.

He paused as he was moving towards the door to the balcony, reaching back to claim the notebook and pen on the desk on a whim. While the thought of just sitting and watching the sunrise was a nice one, he was well aware that he didn't do the whole sitting still thing very well. He almost grabbed his iPod as well, but decided against it. There were certain times where silence was just better. _Not that it's ever really silent. Between the sound of the waves and the background hum of the city herself, it's sometimes quieter than usual, but rarely ever silent. Only when the power's out, _John mused, even as it occurred to him it was probably an even rarer event for him then for most in the city due to the additional not quite hum in the back of his mind that was his connection to Atlantis. That was something else he seldom talked about specifically, mostly because people tended to look at him like he was crazier than usual when he did. Something about trying to explain that a city was talking to you tended to have that effect. But he really couldn't come up with a better way to explain it. It was easily accepted enough that he 'talked' fairly directly with Atlantis, but it was apparently more off-putting for most people to think that she talked back to him.

Finally heading out onto the balcony, John settled into the chair Carson had occupied the night before, simply letting himself relax for the moment and enjoy not having to be anywhere or do anything for more than thirty seconds at a time without being sick, injured, or asleep.

After about half an hour of just sitting and watching the sunrise as planned, John's normal tendency to go stir crazy when he'd been sitting still too long started to make itself known. Deciding against going back inside just yet, partly because it was still early for Carson to be awake, John instead flipped open the notebook, fidgeting with the pen while he tried to decide what to write now. That seemed to be one of his major problems with this whole journal thing. He'd more or less conceded the, necessity would be one word, of the project itself, but as was normal for him in such situations, now that he'd decided to talk, he couldn't find the right words for what he wanted to say. It was immensely frustrating, and one of the reasons he laughed at hearing himself described as silver tongued. Certainly, when backed into a corner, or just trying to get himself or his team out of trouble, he could argue, or lie if need be, with the best of them, but trying to express emotions or anything deeper than just friendly chitchat had a tendency to make him tongue tied.

John had lost track of time, staring at the blank page in front of him, and jumped rather spectacularly at the unexpected voice behind him.

"Morning, luv," Carson said, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"Morning. What are you doing up so early?" John returned, trying to slow his heart rate back down to a respectable level.

"Early? It's 8:30, John. I realize I sleep in later than you do, but still," Carson teased, laughing at the pilot's surprised look.

"Wow. Later than I thought. Good thing I don't have any meetings this morning. Or at least I don't think I was supposed to be anywhere yet," John said, quickly running through his schedule for the day, trying to think if he'd forgotten anything.

"No, apparently you don't. Someone would have radioed if you were late for anything important. So what are you doing, exactly?" Carson asked, grinning, still amused by the whole exchange.

It took John a minute to put together a coherent answer, distracted as he was by the dimpled grin and wondering once again how anyone's eyes could possibly be that shade of blue. "Um, well, came out here to watch the sunrise, initially. Kind of got lost in thought after that. Wool gathering, if you will," he joked, smiling at the blush he got in response.

"Still having trouble deciding what to write?" Carson asked, nodding at the notebook in John's lap. He'd noticed that had been a fairly frequent comment in what John had written thus far, that he really didn't know what to write about.

"Yeah. Aside from the fact that I suck at things like this in general, I just don't know where to start, really. Which seems kind of silly, seeing as I've already started, I guess. But it really hasn't gone much of anywhere. Kind of like I've started, but I haven't, if that makes any sense at all."

"Aye, I understand," Carson paused for a moment, recalling something John had done in their conversation last night, earlier that morning; however you wanted to define that. "Have you considered using music?"

"Music? For what?" John frowned, not following where this was going.

"To set a theme of sorts. Kind of like what you did earlier this morning, quoting lyrics as a way to express things you otherwise can't find the right words for. You don't have to quote them directly, necessarily, unless that helps, but just to use as an idea for where to start. Keep in mind, this doesn't have to be in any particular order or anything. We're not asking you to write your biography, unless you just want to. If that's how you want to come at it, then by all means, but that wasn't the original intent. It's really intended to be a way for you to work through nightmares or anything else that's bothering you."

John looked thoughtful for a moment, considering this. "So, what, just pick a song and go from there?" He wasn't quite sure how that was going to help, but at the moment it seemed as good an approach as any.

"You could. If you think about it, you've actually done this before, applied songs to describe something, either literally or thematically. Like using a very badly off-key version of Folsom Prison Blues as a way to try to annoy me in to releasing you back to quarters early," Carson stated, mock glaring at John.

John laughed. "Well, if you would let me go sooner, that wouldn't be a problem, now would it?" he teased back. "But seriously, how do you set about something like that? I've never really tried to do it before; it's always just kind of come to me. It's a bit like math that way. I don't know how I know, I just do."

"So don't try. You leave your iPod on shuffle most of the time anyway, right?"

"Yeah… Oh! I see. Don't try to intentionally pick something, just let it play and use the first thing that jumps out at me at the time," John said, his eyes lighting up as they did when the proverbial light bulb came on. It was a bit like watching a schoolchild who had just solved a difficult homework problem; he looked so pleased with himself-a rare occurrence in itself.

"Aye, exactly. It seems to me that's been part of your problem thus far. You're trying too hard, focusing too much on what you think is expected of you. There are no expectations to this, honestly. This is strictly to help you. It's not like a school assignment that has to be a certain number of words or pages or anything like that. Don't feel like you have to fill the entire notebook, but at the same time you're not restricted to only filling the one. Length, style, content, that's entirely up to you. You've been writing it almost like a conversation so far. If that's what works best, stick with that," he sighed, realizing he was rambling a bit. "Point being, there is no right or wrong way to do this. Journals do usually sound a bit like a conversation, true, as that's usually easiest, but if it's easier to explain something in some other style, you're free to switch as needed," Carson explained.

"You seem to have thought a lot about this. Had patients do something like this before have you?" John asked, partially out of curiosity, partially because he was ready for the conversation to be about someone else for a while.

"Not exactly. I did something similar myself once, actually," Carson said, suddenly finding the floor very interesting.

"Really? Mind if I ask why?" John was both curious and concerned now. How had he not known this? It couldn't have been anytime recently, could it?

"I don't mind. And yes, really. Different reason, and it wasn't anytime recently, don't worry," Carson answered, again coming perilously close to outright reading John's mind. "I think I mentioned before my da died when I was fairly young."

"Yeah, you mentioned it in passing once. You were what, 10 at the time? Same age I was when my mom died." The coincidence made it easy for John to remember.

"Aye. What I didn't mention was that I actually ended up in therapy, or grief counseling, if you prefer, for a while afterwards. One of the exercises I was given was something very similar to this. At the time, I had about as much trouble with it as you're having now," Carson said quietly. He'd never told anyone about that before. People tended to do a double take, at the very least, at the idea of the doctor ending up in therapy for something. Aside from the fact that it still hurt to talk about it.

John was quiet for a moment, considering what he was being told. "So what did you do? iPod's not being an option at the time." It would have been 1979, or thereabouts, the technology hadn't been invented yet.

Carson smiled. "No, iPods weren't an option yet. No, I ended up taking more of a narrative method with it. Storytelling, in a way. Found it was the best way to work through memories."

"Hm. Interesting. I hadn't thought about how to handle that yet, but that makes sense. Kind of the same idea as mission reports and such, though with more thoughts and feelings and things added, rather than just being a factual account of what happened," John said slowly, thinking out loud.

"Something like that, aye. Sometimes, especially with the more painful memories, it's easier to explain them, and to work through them, if you can establish some objective distance from it. Writing as a sort of narrator telling a story is one way to try and establish that. Adding thoughts and emotions present at the time helps keep enough of an attachment to what you're writing that you don't completely disassociate yourself from it. That's the real trick of it, I guess, to find a way to look at it objectively enough to be able to explain what happened without fully disconnecting yourself from it," Carson stated, really just expanding on John's thoughts.

"I'll keep that in mind. Get the feeling I'm going to have to do a lot of that as this goes on," John said. Trying for a slightly lighter note, John asked, "So tell me something- is this project your idea then?"

"No, actually it wasn't. The thought had occurred to me, but actually putting into practice was Dr. Heightmeyer's idea. I had nothing to do with that part. Though, as you guessed, some of the restrictions attached to it, like being handwritten, were my idea."

"Thought so. Here's a different question though: Can she actually read my handwriting, do you think? I don't know that she's ever had to try; anything official I write is typed," John had been wondering about that from the beginning.

"Put it this way, if she can read my handwriting, she can certainly read yours," Carson answered, shaking his head. This made a valid point. Carson's handwriting really did look like what most people thought a doctor's handwriting looked like- nearly impossible to read. John could read it, but only by virtue of having had time to practice.

"Fair point. Though yours isn't so bad when you actually try to make it legible, rather than scribbling notes like you think something's going to get you if you don't finish them in a hurry," John joked.

"Well maybe I wouldn't have to write so fast if some people could manage to keep themselves out of trouble for more than five minutes without being watched," Carson returned, sticking his tongue out at John.

"Hey! I'm not the only one!" John defended, amused by the decidedly childish turn the conversation had taken.

"No, you're not. That applies to Rodney as well. He just doesn't happen to be here right now," Carson conceded, ruffling the pilot's hair.

"Just as well. Though I'm sure his reaction to seeing you in your boxers would be an interesting one," John pointed out, grinning.

Carson blushed and swatted John lightly upside the head. He'd completely forgotten about that detail. John just laughed, enjoying this entirely too much.

Carson shook his head. At least John was feeling better now. "On that note, I suppose I really ought to get dressed. I have to go on shift fairly soon anyway."

"Again? Running that short-handed?" John asked. Shifts didn't usually run this close together otherwise.

"Aye, for the moment. That cold you had before is still circulating. It should be just about through its run through the city, but until then…" Carson shrugged, giving John a 'what can you do?" kind of look.

John made a face. "Could be worse, I guess. Could be back-to-back shifts."

"Aye, or almost continual shifts, like during the siege," Carson agreed as they headed back inside.

"Ick. Don't remind me. Getting my guys off the speed pills after that was bad enough. Without even touching on getting McKay back down off them." Referring to the caffeine pills most of the city had been taking to stay awake for three days straight at the time.

"Aye, that was something else alright. Let's not do that again, shall we?"

"Agreed. Now if only we could get the Wraith to sign on to that."

They both rolled their eyes at this thought. It was very much a 'if wishes were horses' kind of thing.

Now that they were both dressed and otherwise ready for the day, all that remained was actually getting to work. There was another fairly awkward silence as neither wanted to be the one to have to say the words to send them their separate ways.

Finally John sighed. "See you in few hours for lunch then?"

Carson nodded, "Aye, sounds like a plan."

John chuckled, "Plan? Since when did I start making those?"

Carson laughed, kissing John's cheek. "See you for lunch, luv. In the meantime, I need to get to work, and so do you."

John rolled his eyes, looking like a petulant schoolchild. "Fine, if you insist. Have to be all responsible and stuff. Geez."

Carson arched his eyebrows at that. "High school much, John."

John grinned. "I know. Ok, ok, I'll be good. I won't even torment McKay. Much. I do need to see if they found anything interesting on that planet though."

"You do that. Just…behave yourself. I can't believe I actually have to say that."

John made a small mock bow. "I excel at that it would seem. Making people say things they never thought they would have to."

"You are something else, right enough. Alright, enough of this. We actually do need to go now."

"I know. You first. I'll stay here for a while, then go." This was fairly typical, staggering things like that. It just made things a bit easier to explain if necessary, if they didn't leave at the same time.

"Right," Carson acknowledged, pausing just long enough to kiss John again before heading out.

John shook his head, slowly counting to 30 before he left to find Major Lorne to get his report first, and then off to harass McKay.


	5. Foolish Pride

**Title:** Sheppardology 101

**Author: **Yodakitty

**Rating: **M- language

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Spoilers**: None that I can think of

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it.

* * *

-2 hours later-

As it turned out, Major Lorne's report had been short and sweet. The natives of P4X-9737, while nice enough people, had pretty much nothing that was of any real interest to Atlantis technology-wise. The major's recommendation was to continue trading with them for the not-quite sugar plant whatever-it-was that they did have, but the ruins that had also been on the planet were nothing to write home about.

McKay backed up this report, in more words and with a lot of griping and bitching thrown in. Apparently, it had also rained the entire time he was on the planet, something he seemed to be holding John personally accountable for. Nothing new there either so far as the pilot was concerned. Gathering all that had taken about an hour, all told. John had hung around McKay's lab for another hour or so before deciding that the physicist was even more deeply engrossed in whatever it was he was working on at the moment than normal, enough so that the usual tactics couldn't get a rise out of him. Bored, John left him to whatever it was, telling him he would be back around lunchtime to see how things were progressing. Getting a mostly incoherent grumbled response in return, John started to head to the gym and thought better of it when he remembered that Ronon would be there practicing with some of the Marines. Having not yet recovered from yesterday's double dose of sparring, it was the military commander's executive decision to sit this round out in favor of still being able to move, instead opting to return to his quarters until lunch. He figured he probably ought to be in his office, since he was still technically on duty, but anyone who needed to find him knew he very seldom used his office as anything more than storage space. At the moment his office looked more like a small armory then an office.

Stepping into his quarters, John almost immediately decided it was too quiet. He was finding that to be the case a lot lately. _We're not actually living together, not that one would be able to tell with the way I'm acting. Starting with suddenly deciding it's too quiet to be in here by myself. When did that happen?_ John thought, mildly annoyed with himself. It wasn't like he was a teenager with a crush or something. And he'd never gotten so...clingy, was the first word that came to mind, with anyone before. _Well, there was the one time…_John shuddered at the thought. Not something he was going to mention to anyone, ever. Or even think about.

Shaking his head to clear the thought, John wandered over to where he'd left his iPod sitting on the table. He had a dock that he could use, but mostly kept to using headphones to listen to it, as much out of habit as anything. Most bases he'd been assigned to the walls in the barracks were about like the walls in most dorm halls- basically useless for blocking sound. More collapsing then sitting in the chair at the desk, John put one of the ear buds in his ear, leaving his radio in the other ear. He was still on duty, after all, he couldn't take the radio out right now. Hitting the play button on the iPod, he listened to the beginning of whatever the first song was going to be as he flipped the notebook open. He wasn't sure why, but now felt like as good a time as any to write a bit more. He had an hour and a half or so still before lunch and not much of anything else he needed to be doing right now. Even his mission reports were up to date for once. Reflecting on what Carson had said earlier about using music as a kind of theme for journal entries, John skipped through songs on the current playlist until one jumped out at him. Pausing for a moment to identify the song, he picked up the pen and started to write.

_Okay, trying something new this time. It has been pointed out to me by a little birdie that perhaps I should try using music as a kind of guide for giving these entries some sort of direction. Not dissimilar to the 'what I'm listening to' bit on myspace, or any other blog really, if you think about it. So, we'll see how this goes._

_Title: Foolish Pride_

_Artist: Travis Tritt_

_A fitting song, really, for a number of reasons. Start with the title- Foolish Pride. Not something I'm exactly short on. How many times just in the last few years has my pride, foolish or otherwise, gotten me, my team, the expedition, into trouble? Entirely too many. Too many times it's happened, too often good people have died for it. All because I don't know when to quit. And I never learn. No matter how many times it's gotten me or someone I care about hurt, or killed, in some cases, I never learn._

_'Turn out the lights/the competition's over/the stubborn souls are the losers here tonight/and while the bridges burn/another hard, hard lessons learned'. Too true. Guess that's why the line sticks out in my head. All except the lessons learned part. I could apply that in more ways than is really probably healthy._

_Okay, I'm wandering again. Let's try this in chronological kind of way. Just for organization's sake._

_Earliest thing I could apply this song to would probably be my whole relationship with my father. Ignoring for the moment that the song is actually about lovers and breaking up and only using select parts of the song, it still fits. All else aside, most of the fights we ever had were the product of ego and foolish pride, at least to start. Neither of us ever knew when to quit, when to back down. Because of that, the fights got steadily worse over time. Among other ways my father and I differ, our tempers are fairly drastically different. I get pissed, attack the nearest thing, ideally the source of whatever's pissing me off in the first place, work off the anger and frustration, and that's usually the end of that. There are certain exceptions. Kolya would be a big one. Though in that case it is sort of comforting to know I'm as much a pain in his ass as he is in mine. But he's one of the few I've ever really held a true grudge against._

_My father, on the other hand, can hold a grudge forever. He very seldom yells or anything like that, he just gets very quiet, gives you a look that makes you want to crawl under a rock, and proceeds to make your life a living hell for as long as he can. No one ever taught him the concept of 'forgive and forget' as far as I've ever been able to tell. I was 17 or 18 before I learned that I had an uncle, my father's brother. I only learned this after said uncle had died. The reason this had never been mentioned before then? Because he and my father got into a fight over a card game, of all things, accusations of cheating were brought up on both sides, (Father was probably counting cards. That is where I get the innate math talent from, after all.), Father stormed off and never spoke to his brother again. My brother and I didn't know anything about this uncle until well after he was dead. Knowing that, after all the fights Father and I got into, I wasn't especially surprised when he stopped talking to me. For the record, I did try to talk to him a few times at first, but when it comes to reasoning with my father on something like that…well, you'd have better luck reasoning with a brick wall. Or a Wraith. Take your pick of hopeless projects. But back to the foolish pride angle. Most of the fights we did have were over who was right and who was wrong. That's what it was really about. There was no looking for a compromise or a solution of any kind, honestly. At one time, I might have been willing to back down and talk it out with him. I was very young and naïve at the time, and still thought it was possible to patch things up with him, to reason with him. I was 10, my mother had just died not all that long ago, and I guess I was trying to hold on to the only parent I had left. This was before he made my life a complete living hell, and made it very apparent what he really thought of me. Suffice to say it wasn't complimentary. I've never questioned that my father hated me. He was very explicit about that. "You stupid, worthless little bitch! Why couldn't you have died instead of her?! Done us all a favor, you pathetic piece of shit. Goddamn fag, you look like a whore. Pretty as you are, that's all you'll ever be. A whore. Get used to being on your knees, slut. Now, get out of my sight before I kill you."_

_Yes, the quotes are there are on purpose. Yes, that is verbatim from memory. He said things like that a lot. Not hard to see why I had no illusions as to how he felt about me. He was forever going on about how pretty I was, too pretty, too feminine. True, I've always been skinny, athletic, and have been told more than once I look more like a dancer or a gymnast than a soldier. Like I had a choice in that. Just to be clear, when he gave that particular speech, I was 11. I had no idea what my orientation was yet. Hadn't had any reason to think about it. I was only just getting to the point it was plausible that girls didn't have cooties. Contemplation of my sexual orientation was not high on my list of things to worry about. However, it should also be mentioned that around that time my father had what could only be called a drinking problem, and I'll admit, I did and still do look a lot like my mother. That would be enough of a plausible reason for him to maybe get confused about who he was talking to, except that he never seemed to be. I'm pretty sure he knew it was me. The only other possible explanation I've ever come up with, in retrospect, was that perhaps my father was in the closet and taking it out on me even before either of us knew which way I was going to go, sexual orientation-wise. That I have no answer for, if he was, I was never aware of it. My brother might have known, but it's not like he would have told me._

_Anyway, more on that later, no doubt. There are other songs I can think of that will bring that back up again. Moving on. Foolish pride. A bit more in line with the actual content of the song, I suppose you could apply that to my marriage to my ex-wife falling apart. A lot of that was based in pride, too. Her's in thinking that she could break me to be what she wanted me to be, like that hadn't been tried before. Mine in thinking I could bring her around. Something we both needed to learn: if you're meant to be together, you don't need to change each other. You should be fine as is. It won't always be sunshine and lollipops, sure, but you shouldn't have to try and completely change the way someone acts, what they believe, in order to make it work. And that was what was going to have to happen for that marriage to have worked. We were both born and raised in wealthy households. She loved that life, loved that she could have servants to do everything for her, that she could have anything she wanted, any time she wanted, simply because she wanted it. She has a job, but it's just another way for her to expand her power base, her sphere of influence in a new direction. It was always about image and power and prestige with her. Maintaining what she had, gaining more. I hate that life. I got away from it as fast as I could. Not only to separate myself from my father's influence, but because it's too much smoke and mirrors and backstabbing for my taste. No one is ever who they seem to be. Something I unfortunately learned to do as well, hide who I am, be whatever and whoever I need to be at the time. I was raised to it, and it has its uses. She hated the military. Everything to do with it. The regulations, the restrictions, the fact that she was expected, as an officer's wife, to socialize not only with the other officers' wives, but with the enlisted wives as well for certain functions. That not all the officers' wives were from the same tax bracket that she and I had been born into. The military was my world, the social elitist life was hers. She didn't fit any better in my world than I did in hers. Foolish pride being what it is, however, both thought they could change the other, to make them fit into the other's world. Doomed from the beginning._

_On top of all that, there's the previously mentioned more professional aspect of it. First instance that comes to mind, chronologically, anyway, is Holland. I've touched on this before (usually by way of either fever or painkiller induced ramblings) so I won't go into too many details now. But at the base of it, it wasn't really a sense of heroism or anything like that that led me to do it. Where is the line between heroism and simply being too cocky, too proud, to know when to call it a loss? Call it what you will, but I lost sight of that line that time. What I did was nearly get us both killed, and he still died. Only difference was he didn't die alone. Which is something, I suppose, but not enough. All because I wasn't fast enough, didn't have a good enough plan to get us back alive. Or bright enough to realize it was hopeless. Optionally called not believing there is such a thing as a no-win situation. Again, call it what you will. My CO called it stupid, arrogant, insubordination, and open attempt to undermine his authority. (It might have gone down better if I had 1) died in the attempt, 2) brought Holland back alive, or 3) at least not lost another multi-million dollar helicopter to the attempt.) But whatever else it may say about me, I couldn't leave him there. He was my friend, really the only true friend I had at that point. And yes, we had speculated that under different circumstances we might have been more than that, but at the time, not so much. Risks to both our careers aside, I wasn't long divorced at that point, and he was coming off a bad break-up as well. We decided there was too much at stake, our friendship as well as our careers, to risk on what was probably only going to be a rebound fling for us both. One of those 'maybe if we had met in a different time, in a different place' kind of things._

_On a related note, kind of, I still don't know what to do about Ford. If the kid's even still alive. Reality is starting to counteract the pride on this one. I don't know where he is, if he's still alive, or the faintest idea on how to get him back here or deal with the thrice damned addiction of his. Part of me wants to believe he's still alive out there somewhere. But with the addiction and everything else, part of me almost hopes he isn't. That at least he's managed to find peace of a kind, away from the addiction, from the Wraith, from the fighting. For a Marine weapons specialist, he was just a kid. Ignoring the fact that said kid had been to more planets at the outset of the expedition than I knew existed. :) Jumped through the 'Gate backwards when we came through to Atlantis, after giving me crap about how much it hurt just moments before. Like I said, just a kid really._

_Crap! It's a bit after noon now. Lunchtime. Need to check on Rodney, then meet up with Carson. Possibly bring Rodney along with, if I can get him out of the lab and away from whatever he's working on. More later._


	6. Ancient lava lamps

**Title:** Sheppardology 101

**Rating: **M

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Spoilers**: 'Common Ground'

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it.

A/N: Thanks to all who have reviewed/favorited the story! To those who have been reading and not leaving reviews, etc.- and there are a number of you (the site tracks visitors to stories, so I know you're out there)- if you would pretty please take a minute or two and push the lovely review button and let me know what you think. Praise, constructive criticism, thoughts in general, all very much appreciated. Thanks! Now on with the story (and my taking the opportunity to physically whump on Shep for a bit...should have known I couldn't get through the story without doing that.)

* * *

It was not quite three weeks before John had the chance or the inclination to write any further journal entries. The day of the last entry everything had gone well until after dinner. Shortly after the meal itself was over, the family was just sitting around chatting and generally catching up. Somehow, John had known it was too good to last. Things had been quiet around the city for too long, long enough that it had a 'calm before the storm' feel to it. As if to prove him right, everything went to hell in a hand basket in under an hour.

First the radio call from one of the labs. One of the recently discovered pieces of Ancient technology had malfunctioned and exploded. Either that or they had found the Ancient version of a hand grenade. General consensus was a malfunction, seeing as the Ancients were not apparently big believers in personal weaponry. As it turned out, no one had been hurt in the initial explosion. So far so good, it seemed, a bit of structural damage, but nothing too serious.

Everyone involved just had time to get checked over, verifying that no one had been injured beyond minor cuts and scrapes, when alarms started going off in a recently explored, as of yet mostly unused part of the city. Due to the fact that the sensors in that part of the city were only sporadically functional, for reasons that McKay and Zelenka had yet to determine, it meant someone had to physically go out and see what was setting off the alarms. For reasons that he later could not recall, John agreed to go check it out, taking Lorne and a couple of the other nearby Marines along, and radio back to McKay what he found. The chances were good it was just a malfunction in the system, annoying but simple enough to fix. At least, that was what John told himself as he headed towards the location indicated as the source of the alarm.

Finally, they reached the source of the alarm, a small room on the very farthest outskirts of the city. At first glance there was nothing of any particular importance in the room. A little desk, a chair, and a small lava lamp looking thing that lit up when John entered the room. _Okay, so the Ancient's were the ones that came up with those things. I still don't know what the purpose of them is supposed to be. Kind of hypnotic to watch though. Maybe that is the point of them, just a way to relax. Or the Ancient's did recreational drugs too, and it really was inspired by a bad acid trip, _John thought as he watched the little blobs in the lava lamp drift. It looked like any other lava lamp John had ever seen, really.

"Um, sir," Lorne called from the doorway, "with all due respect, I would suggest getting away from the, uh, lava lamp. I really don't think it's supposed to be making that noise."

"What noise- oh, crap," Was all John had time to say before the lava lamp looking thing caught fire and exploded. It wasn't a very powerful explosion, thankfully, but it was enough that the concussion wave that went with the explosion still threw John into the far wall hard enough he lost consciousness.

Most of the next week was spent with John either unconscious or awake and not coherent. Complications from getting hit in the head too hard, too many times too close together. On the bright side, there didn't seem to be any real danger of permanent brain damage. How that was, no one knew, but John was known for being lucky like that. It was only after the pilot started waking up enough to speak coherently that things got really interesting, as while the statements themselves were coherent enough, no one had any idea what he was talking about.

"You're sure there's no permanent damage to his brain? At least no more so then there was before? I mean, there had to have been some there already. The man throws himself in front of bullets for cryin' out loud. No one in their right mind does that." This observation, which was quickly becoming a fully fledged rant, from one Dr. Rodney McKay, Atlantis' resident genius, Chief of Science, general hypochondriac, and for reasons no one really understood, John's best friend.

"Aye, Rodney. For about the millionth time, I might add. I'm not sure how he did it either, but while the continued disorientation is worrying, nothing in the scans shows signs of damage that weren't there before." Carson just stopped himself from sighing. It wouldn't have been so bad if Rodney hadn't been bringing up the same questions he had been wondering about himself, ranging from how there hadn't been more damage done then apparently had been to once again questioning John's sanity. Granted, it wasn't like the pilot had been expecting the… lava lamp, as Lorne had described it, to explode any more than anyone else had. Once again, John had just been in the exact wrong place at the wrong time and ended up injured because of it.

"Stop it." Both scientists present jumped spectacularly at the unexpected comment from the previously unconscious John.

"Is he actually talking to us this time or to…whoever it is that he's been talking to lately, Zim, Tom-" Rodney fumbled with the unknown name.

"Tim," Carson supplied, only half paying attention to the physicist

"Right, Tim. Who the hell is Tim anyway? Unless he's talking to Tim the Enchanter all of a sudden. Surely even he hasn't seen _Holy Grail_ that many times. Seriously-"

"I don't know, Rodney," Carson interrupted before McKay could continue with the most recent tangent, "He's never mentioned anyone named Tim before now. Tim could have been Holland's first name. Or it could have been the name of a dog he had as a child. I don't bloody well know." Carson ran his hands through his hair, which was already doing a credible imitation of John's as it was. Testament to frustration, really, as, sarcasm aside, whoever Tim was, he figured heavily in to some of John's worst nightmares. Nightmares Carson couldn't begin to figure out how to calm, since he really didn't know anything about the content of them beyond references to Tim.

"No! Tim, stop! I won't do it again, I promise. Just stop." John was crying now, well past terrified, just desperate. You could hear it in his voice, fear, pain, helplessness, desperation. None of them feelings one would normally associate with John. "I didn't, I swear I didn't. No, don't-" Whatever else he had been about to say was cut off by the tormented sounding scream that clawed its way out of the pilot. Everyone else in the infirmary shuddered; most of them had only heard John scream like that on one other occasion: when Kolya had incrementally fed him to a Wraith that had also been held captive by the Genii commander, now named Todd. It was hard to decide which was worse, the scream or the wracking, broken sounding sobs that started when the screaming stopped.

The last couple of days had been like this, John somewhere between simply unconscious and actually asleep most of the time except for sudden outbursts like this one. There was never much detail to what he said, all you could tell was he was terrified and in pain. And that Tim, whoever he was, was responsible for it. Clearly he was someone John had known at one time, though why and how well it was hard to tell. Carson had a work in progress theory about that, though it was one of the few times he'd ever really hoped a theory was wrong. Because if it wasn't, it meant that Tim had either been a friend or boyfriend of John's at some point, someone John had trusted, who had, from the sounds of it, at the very least beaten him, likely repeatedly. Carson shook his head, clearing it. That was all conjecture at this point; John was the only one who knew what had really happened. For the moment all he could do was try to reassure John as best he could until the pilot fell asleep once more.

This pattern continued a little over another week. Eight days of listening to the pleas, screams, and sobs, of frustration for them all at not being able to really do anything for the pilot. Even when he was awake he wasn't really aware of where he was or who else was there, trapped inside his nightmares. And they did seem to be different nightmares, though they had a similar cast of characters each time. Mostly Tim, though sometimes other names would come up. One got the feeling the others were friends and/or accomplices of the by now infamous Tim. It was starting to get to everyone at this point. More than once one of the nurses had broken into tears just listening to it. Carson had been taken off duty, more or less voluntarily, after the first few days of it. Not that he wasn't still practically haunting the infirmary, he just wasn't technically supposed to see patients for the moment. This meant Dr. Keller was in charge for the moment, though she was less than happy about it. Blessedly, things were relatively quiet other than dealing with John, who had been moved to an isolation room after the first couple of days of increasingly frequent nightmares, and off duty or not, Carson was seeing to him for the most part. It had been decided early on that that was for the best, since they really still couldn't sedate John due to the lingering concussion effects, the full extent of which remained to be seen since he still really hadn't woken up completely, to spare him and everyone else from the nightmares that way, and especially through the worst of the nightmares, Carson was the only one John would really listen to anyway.

It was all around heart-breaking situation, Jennifer decided, taking a look around the infirmary. Over the course of the 15 days John had been a patient this time around, his team had all but permanently moved in. This wasn't all that unusual, except that all of them stayed almost all the time, rather than taking it in shifts the way they normally did. Another sign of just how bad this had gotten, as if anyone needed the additional reminder. Moving John in to the isolation room muffled the sounds, but the walls in between weren't thick enough to block them completely.

Finally, on day 16 for those who were keeping count, the nightmares stopped for the most part. It had been almost a full day since they had heard the heartbreakingly familiar sequence of reactions to them. As far as anyone could tell, this either meant the nightmares had finally eased off or John was more fully aware and back to something closer to his normal level of control and hopefully both.


	7. Recovery begins

**Title:** Sheppardology 101

**Author: **Yodakitty

**Rating: **M

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Spoilers**: mild reference to 'Instinct'

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it. Same goes for 'The Great Escape', from which I pulled inspiration for the Steve McQueen reference.

A/N: Thanks as always for the reviews! I enjoy hearing from you all, and I try to respond to any reviews/pm's that I get. *insert usual plea for reviews here* You know the drill... :P

* * *

Day 17 brought about the next major change. John finally fully woke up, over two weeks after the initial accident. Rodney was the first to notice the pilot was actually awake, mostly because Jennifer had only recently managed to chase Carson back at least as far as his office to get some sleep. _He's never going to let me do that again, _Jennifer thought wryly as Rodney finally managed to tell her of the change in John's status after about three breathless tries. _Ya know, he's kind of cute when he's excited and flustered like that. It's sweet, really. _She shook her head, setting aside thoughts of Rodney being cute and slightly fluffy for a time when she didn't have a recently awakened patient to deal with.

"Have you been listening to anything I've been telling you? He's awake. Finally," Rodney reiterated, sounding annoyed at having to repeat himself.

"Yes, Rodney, I heard you the first time. How about you go tell Carson that John's awake, while I go check on him, okay?" Jennifer forced a brighter tone to her voice, smiling slightly at him. Cute he may be, but he could still be very, very aggravating.

"Hm? Yeah, I'll, uh, do that." _Interesting how he's at a loss all of sudden. Wonder why he didn't go get Carson first anyway? Think I'm missing something here,_ Jennifer thought as she watched Rodney head off towards Carson's office and then headed towards the isolation room where John was.

Taking a deep breath, Jennifer waved the door open, bracing herself against whatever it was she was about to walk into the middle of. Which turned out to be watching Ronon trying to restrain John without causing additional injury to the pilot, while John was apparently bound and determined to get out of bed, regardless of the fact that his muscles were being less then cooperative after being in bed for a bit over two weeks.

"Damn it, Chewie, get off me! I can walk, or I could if you weren't sitting on me," John demanded, trying to put as much command into the statement as possible.

"No. You already tried that. Twice. It didn't work. Either time," Ronon replied, not moving. It occurred to Jennifer to wonder how it was that John was able to talk at all after all the screaming he'd done lately. After listening to the debate for another few moments, she decided it was mostly pure force of will. If you listened carefully, you could hear how rough his voice sounded from the combination of disuse for a while and then the abuse on his vocal cords from the screams, but he decidedly wasn't letting such details as possible additional damage to his vocal cords get in the way of making his displeasure with the situation known in no uncertain terms.

"Consider it an order if you must, just get off me! Besides, if I'm really that bad, it's not like I'm going to go much of anywhere anyway. What difference does it make to let me try?" John reasoned, switching tactics.

"Already let you try. Twice," Ronon said, looking at Teyla for confirmation that this was one of the times she had been referring to that it was okay to ignore orders. He seemed to remember that it was as long as it was for Sheppard's own good. Teyla nodded, understanding the unspoken question. This was indeed one of those times they needed to protect John from himself. Jennifer was spared having to intervene in the debate by the arrival of both Rodney and Carson.

"Conan, I said not to let him get up, not crush him. Am I the only one who realizes just what a bad plan this is? He only just woke up, how much trouble could it possibly be to not let him get out of bed? He shouldn't even be able to walk after having been in bed so long," Rodney said launching into the beginnings of a 90-mile a minute rant.

Before either Ronon or John could answer, Carson chimed in. "Harder than you'd think, actually. He's tried to escape while in worse condition than this before."

"_He_ is right here you know. I can speak for myself," John retorted, glaring at the room in general as if offended by the universe at large, not just the people immediately present.

"We know, love. It's alright Ronon, he's not going anywhere, you can let go," Carson answered crossing over to the bed and ruffling John's hair. "How are you feeling, other than awake and already annoyed with the galaxy?"

"I want to go home. Other than that, awake and annoyed with the galaxy about covers it," John snarked back, clearly not having forgiven any of them for talking over his head like that.

"Figured as much. You've been awake for all of what? 5 minutes? That's usually long enough for you to start planning your next Steve McQueen imitation," Carson replied, teasing lightly. Best not to start trying to get answers out him about Tim and the nightmares this early, that was a conversation better left until later.

Of course no sooner had Carson thought that then Rodney opened up with the rapid fire questions. "Now that you're making more sense, who the hell is Tim? Where did he come from? And you kept promising not to do something again. Not do what again? What did you do?" The string of questions only stopped when Ronon smacked Rodney upside the head, similar to what he'd seen John do on several occasions. The physicist sputtered a bit, but it brought him up short enough that he realized John was now paler then the pillows he was laying on.

"How did you know- Never mind. Don't answer that. I really don't want to know what else I've said recently," John had actually turned another couple shades paler as he spoke and was visibly fighting not to start hyperventilating.

"John, easy, love. It's alright. Just breathe," Carson said, splitting his attention between trying to calm John down and glaring at Rodney. "You don't have to answer any of that. Just relax, it's alright."

"John, I- I'm-" Rodney stuttered, unable to finish the thought, cursing himself for letting his curiosity get the better of him like that.

John shook his head, back in control once more. "It's okay. Just…forget about it, okay? It's not important." The pilot realized he sounded more than a bit plaintive, putting it that way, but he was tired and really wished the floor would open up and swallow him, so he wasn't too worried about it just now.

Rodney started to say something but was quickly silenced by glares from multiple directions. "Okay, forget I asked. We good?" He said instead.

"Yeah, we're good. Just…yeah. It's fine," John replied, waving a hand vaguely in Rodney's direction, the shock apparently having drained whatever energy John had left. Conversation turned to further questions about how John was feeling, dismissing any lingering concerns about side effects from the original concussion, and starting to catch him up on the events of the last couple of weeks. It didn't take long before he fell asleep again, hoping he was exhausted enough not to dream this time.


	8. A bit of history

**Title:**Sheppardology 101

**Rating: **M- language, non-con, abuse (This is about as dark as it gets...)

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Spoilers**: None that I can think of

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it. And I shouldn't have to say this, but none of the songs I reference over the course of the story belong to me either.

Also, inspiration for Tim and most of the events in this chapter came from Cha-cha's story 'Commitment', which I re-read shortly before I started writing this story, though I took a much darker take on events for this story. For those who have read it, that should explain a bit about where this is going, even if the specific events I use are only loosely related in places. If you haven't, I would recommend it.

A/N: So, I finally got a chance to do the rewrite on this chapter and get it posted. Sorry for the delay, RL got in the way for a bit there.

* * *

The next 10 days mostly consisted of getting John through physical therapy to rebuild muscle mass lost to having been in bed for so long. All things considered it actually went very smoothly as John was willing to do just about anything that meant he could be back on his feet, out of the infirmary and back on active duty faster. Among other things, this meant that he progressed through physical therapy much more quickly than most people, though he did start to get bored in between therapy sessions after a couple of days.

It was because of this boredom that he out of the blue asked for the journal, which so far as he knew was still on the desk where he'd left it. Carson, while surprised by the request, quickly agreed and brought back notebook, pen, and John's iPod as well, leaving all of it on the nearby fold-out table, easily within John's reach. About then Rodney radioed from his lab, needing to borrow Carson for light switch duty since John was unavailable at the moment. With a sigh and a quick kiss he left to see what bit of Ancient tech Rodney needed activated this time, just hoping it wouldn't explode. There had been too much of that lately.

John watched him leave then reached over picking up assorted items on the table. Going ahead and opening the notebook to the next blank page, he took a moment to collect his thoughts. This was going to be arguably the hardest entry to write so far, but it was the only way he could bring himself to explain the mostly delusional references he'd made over the last couple weeks, which he actually did remember, though he kept telling everyone that he didn't. He knew he would eventually have to give some sort of explanation to his team as well, though he didn't yet know how he was going to do it. First, he needed to explain to Carson. He needed to know that this wasn't going to change anything, wasn't going to mess things up between them. The journal was a fairly easy way to do that, and since the whole point of the project was to get to the root cause or causes of his mental and emotional problems, it was bound to come up eventually anyway. Yes, it meant that Dr. Heightmeyer would also see it, but that was inevitable. First priority was to try and plead his case to his boyfriend; he would deal with everyone else later- what he told anyone else, and how he handled the telling, would largely depend on the outcome of this step. It also occurred to him that he was now several weeks overdue to check in with Dr. Heightmeyer about this journal thing. Surely with the concussion and all she would forgive him that, right?

_Alright, I know it's been a while since I've written anything. A little over three weeks now, actually, and I was unconscious for most of it. Clearly, things have been a bit crazy lately. That said, this may be the most incoherent reading entry yet. Not so much because I don't know what I need to say, just that finding the words is going to be harder than normal. Which is saying something, since it isn't easy anyway. The thing is, the explanation I have to make now is one I've never tried to make before. One of those parts of my life that no one who wasn't there at the time knows anything about. There are a couple of reasons for that, ranging from just wanting to forget it had ever happened at the time to not being able to say anything later for fear that someone would decide that Don't Ask, Don't Tell works retroactively as well as for current known relationships. And, if I'm being perfectly honest, due to having fallen into what I'm told is a not completely unusual thought process for victims of certain things: holding on to the belief that what happened was my fault against all logic. That I somehow really did deserve it, just as he said I did. I will explain more what I mean by that momentarily, though I get the feeling you've already guessed a lot of it. While the recent attempts at creating some semblance of normalcy are appreciated, you really don't lie very well. But seriously, I do appreciate you not making a big deal out of this so far, even though you must have about a zillion questions by now. I know I would. Doing this in writing is probably not the best way to handle it, but it's the only way I know of that I might actually make it through the story without breaking._

_Wow, that was actually kind of painful to admit. But for once, I'm actually not going to try to edit. This not only plays directly into the actual reason behind my having to keep this journal in the first place, but is also something I really should have told you already. I haven't done so before now for the same reason I'm only doing it in writing now- fear of what the fallout will be. In some ways, I've spent the last couple of years waiting for the other shoe to drop, trying to keep some distance as insulation against the time when I inevitably did something to screw up what we have. I've told you before, I don't deserve you. Not flattery, just the truth. It's always been just a matter of time before I said or did something, or admitted to something that happened before, that finally made you realize what I've known all along. I know it's kind of random to say all this now, but I thought I should throw that out there before I go any further with the explanation. Really, this and the bit about my dad earlier on are about the darkest personal secrets I have. I won't say they're the darkest secrets total, as some of the professionally related ones get pretty dark, just dark in a different way._

_Okay, with that much said, I am going to have to use music to try and keep this focused. Or possibly as a distraction so that I can write rather than simply reliving the whole thing again. To that end, I'm actually going to use two: Lifeline by Papa Roach to start with, and switching to Carry Me, also by Papa Roachlater on. The actual switch-off point should be readily apparent enough, but I'll try and remember to point it out. I only recently got the CD these songs are on, so I'm only partly familiar with them, but they seem to work for this. We'll see how that goes, I guess. Among other things, I'll also try to explain how my most recent injuries managed to drag up these memories in the first place. It's not as random as it seems._

_Okay, that was an extremely long prologue. Not that I'm stalling or anything. Parts of that were actually necessary._

_Song 1: Lifeline- Papa Roach_

_A bit of background before actually getting to the situation itself: I was a freshman at Stanford when all this started. I've touched on life with my father prior to when I left for college before, so I won't go back over it now. Suffice to say while getting away from him was a blessing in itself, there was enough damage already done that I was more vulnerable then I realized. I didn't yet understand fully just how messed up I was after growing up listening to most of the things he said to me. It would be quite a while longer before that sank in fully, but more on that later._

_What I did know was going away to college was the first time I'd ever truly been left to my own devices, without having to worry about my father watching my every move, either in person or by way of my brother ratting on me. Not an unusual thought for a college freshman, really, it just came as something of a significant shock at first. I had no idea what to do now; I'd never had that kind of freedom before. Not only not being watched, but not having someone hanging over me, drumming it into my head that I was a God-damn useless slut who would never make anything of himself, so why bother trying. Interesting how most people don't realize that the term slut can be, and is, applied to males. Not something I ever had trouble envisioning, it happened on a regular basis as far as I was concerned. Anyway, stalling again. Put simply, while the freedom was nice, I was at a complete loss at what to do with it. I'd always had someone else there, controlling everything, making my decisions for me for the most part, whether I liked it or not. And I really had never liked it, but it was familiar. I suddenly found that without someone else controlling things I was far more shy, unsure of myself and what I was doing. It had been easy enough to keep up the rebelliousness while there was something known to rebel against. What I was finally starting to realize was that my father had accomplished at least one of the goals of his constant control through detailed plan making- like it or not I was completely dependent on it, on having either him or someone else there to make decisions for me. I'd never been allowed to really make my own choices before and realistically didn't know how._

_And so it was that lost, shy, lonely, and arguably affection starved (though I wouldn't have called it that then), I met Tim. Timothy Karl Adams was my roommate starting the beginning of freshman year, was in most of my classes (we were both math majors), and was a linebacker on the football team (I was quarterback, big surprise- skinny, light, fast). We had actually met during the summer training camp before the school year started, but I didn't learn he was going to be my roommate until the beginning of the actual academic year. While we were living on campus for training, no one had actually been assigned their room for the year yet, so everyone on the team had to move rooms on the actual move-in day at the beginning of the year. Freshman players especially had to move, since all players were housed in upper classman dorms over the summer._

_Tim and I actually didn't see much of each other outside of practice before school started. We talked some, but mostly had to concentrate on surviving calisthenics and drills and skirmishes. Coach had decided that the incoming freshmen needed more of all of the above than the upperclassmen, as apparently we were all out of shape despite the fact that all of us had played for our high school teams the year before. It didn't bother me much, though it did make for exceedingly long days and not much time to spend socializing. We were usually exhausted enough by the time Coach called an end to practice that all anyone was inclined to do was head back to their rooms and sleep for a week, knowing that we were going to have to do it all over again starting at 0530 the next morning._

_"I've been looking for a lifeline/ for it seems like a lifetime/ I'm drowning in the pain/ breaking down again/ looking for a lifeline/ So I put out my hand and I asked for some help/ we tore down the walls I built around myself/ I was struck by the light and I fell to the ground."_

_Too bad this song didn't exist at the time. It would have made for a good warning. For that's exactly what I was doing. Slowly but surely, Tim knew he had time to be patient, I wasn't going anywhere, he gained my trust, giving me what I needed most. Someone to talk to, someone to take control away from me again, someone I could lean on, someone to make decisions for me again. He was always very sweet about it, listening to the whole sob story about life with my father, the things he'd called me, how he hated me, how he'd essentially taught my brother to hate me, filing the information away to be used against me at a later date. He kept it up long enough that I actually let myself believe he cared about me. That maybe my father had been wrong after all, I wasn't just a hopeless slut. Just maybe I was worth something after all._

_It was exactly what Tim wanted me to believe. Very gradually, over the course of the next year and a half all told, his true colors started to show. By then I was already too wrapped around his little finger to see it until it was too late. First he started controlling my movements, easy enough to do since we were both on the football team and in most of the same classes. He knew exactly what my schedule was for the classes we didn't have together, and after a while started practically interrogating me if I didn't come straight back to our room after class. If I said it was because I'd been in the library working on a research paper for a given class, he would actually check with the professor to make sure such an assignment existed. I wasn't allowed to really talk to anyone outside of class unless he was with me. I started losing count of the number of invitations to parties I had to find ways to turn down because he had a paper or something due and wouldn't be able to come with me. When I said anything to him about it, he would just say he was just worried about me, didn't want me to get into anything where I could get hurt. That I couldn't trust anyone but him. In retrospect, that part really should have been a big damn red flag that something wasn't right. But at the time I believed it, was still willing to believe that everyone but him would take advantage of me the first chance they got. I somehow failed to realize that he already was._

_I actually didn't realize exactly when we had moved from simply being roommates and he was just concerned for my welfare to dating, but he said we were, so I went with it._

_"I was way out there/ on the wrong side of town/ and the ones that I loved/ I started pushing them out/ then I realized that it was all my fault."_

_And so I was. Should have seen there was something wrong the first time he flipped out on me for not coming back to the room immediately after class, or for talking to other guys. Should've been able to see how he was isolating me from what friends I had made before getting this far in over my head. But I didn't. To this day I don't know why I didn't, really. Don't know how I didn't see how bad things were getting, how Tim had gotten more of a hold on me then my father ever had. My father had never left me any illusion as to exactly what he thought of me. Tim was a master at making it believable that he really did care about me, possibly love me, even, though all the while I was nothing more than plaything to him. An already weak, hurt spirit he didn't have to try very hard to control and then break._

_After a while, I don't remember how long, I stopped arguing with him when he'd go off on me. Didn't matter if the outburst actually made sense or not, or what he was blaming me for this time. If he said it was my fault then it was. I would do absolutely anything to make him happy, and he took full advantage of that. It started out with going back to similar things to what my father had told me- nothing I did was good enough, I was never fast enough, smart enough. Then he started picking on something my father never really had. My father had homed in on the fact that I've always been too pretty for my own good. Tim instead zeroed in on the fact that I've always been ridiculously skinny, borderline underweight at the best of times. Knowing that it didn't matter what he told me, how ridiculous a lie he spun together, I would believe him, he started almost backhandedly implying that I was embarrassing him, but wouldn't say why, letting me worry myself sick over it, trying to figure it out. When I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, I was treated to a long lecture on exactly how stupid I was and that he hadn't wanted to say it outright but he felt he couldn't take me anywhere anymore because I was getting fat and it was an embarrassment to him. Truth was, I was no fatter then than I had ever been. But if he said it, it must be true. So I started starving myself, not eating if I could avoid it, purposely making myself sick first chance I got when I couldn't._

_This was just part of the next phase of his plan. Due to starving myself this way, I was indeed losing weight, weight I really couldn't afford to lose. It didn't take long before metabolism started eating into muscle mass for lack of anything else to use for energy. Accordingly, the longer this went on, the weaker I became. Not that I would have actually fought Tim anyway, at the time, but it didn't take long before I couldn't have even if I wanted to. I simply didn't have the strength to._

_In the meantime, I was missing classes more often then I was actually attending them, and my grades reflected that. I was in serious danger of failing out if something didn't change quickly. This was fall semester sophomore year. To keep people, particularly my professors, from asking too many questions, since we were still in most of the same classes, Tim explained that I was terribly sick and that was why I was missing class, but if they could get my work to him, he would be more than happy to bring it to me and turn it back in to them when I was done. To which our professors were all very sympathetic and handed over the assignments, saying they were sorry I was sick and they hoped I would feel better soon. If only they had known. I was sick alright; in terms of I had developed at least one variety of eating disorder and was dangerously underweight._

_Problem was I also didn't have the strength to concentrate long enough to get my work done. I kept spacing out in the middle of assignments I should have been able to do in my sleep. It was mostly math, playing to a natural talent of mine. Even having missed the lectures on the material, I normally would have been able to rely on the fact that most such things just kind of come to me long enough to get through the assignments and worry about actually looking in the book and teaching myself actual explanations for why the equations worked that way later on. I'd done it before, when I missed classes in high school. The state I was in at the time, I couldn't focus long enough to do it. Tim finally noticed this, again lecturing me on how lazy and stupid I was and how he was going out of his way to help me, so the least I could do was actually finish the God-damn assignments. When I couldn't find the strength to even answer him anymore, it had gotten that bad, he beat me for being insolent._

_This pattern continued for a while, he would pick up my work from my classes, I would take longer getting it done than he thought I should, I'd get beaten for being insolent and lazy and whatever else he could think of at the time, and later he would apologize, telling me he was just upset that I didn't seem to care about him anymore, and he was only trying to help, and sorry for losing his temper like that, it wouldn't happen again, he promised. I don't know how often I heard variations on that same speech._

_Finally he decided, or so it seemed to me at the time, that I was suffering from not having seen anyone but him for so long, and that what I needed was to be around other people again. I was in no condition to actually leave our room, so he invited some of his friends over to visit. Before going any further, I should explain that since we were upperclassmen at this point, Tim had arranged it during room selection the previous spring that we were in one of the school apartments rather than in a dorm room. It was just the two of us in the apartment, I don't know who he bribed or threatened to make that happen, but he did. It was supposed to be a three person apartment, one double room and one single. When we had moved in fall of sophomore year, Tim and I had both moved into the double room. So when I say 'our room' that's really what it was, the double bedroom in the apartment._

_And this is where it more accurately switches into 'Carry Me'._

_"It takes horns to hold up my halo/ and strength to get through the fight/ now I'm laying my cards on the table/ prayin' everything will be all right/ I question my own existence/ question the meaning of life/ why don't you carry me/ why don't you carry me/ I can't move on/ I can't live on/ carry me/ why don't you carry me/ I can't save me/ I am crazy/ without you/ the hardest ones to love/ are the ones who need it most."_

_Where to even begin with that. It was fairly obvious that by this point strength to get through the fight was precisely what I no longer had. I'd long since turned control completely over to Tim and was essentially just praying everything would be all right. It wasn't all right, far from it, in fact, but for some reason I still couldn't see it. That was about to change quickly._

_It was a little after dinner time for those who actually ate anything when Tim's friends arrived. Most of them were already fairly drunk, so if I had had any hope that this was going to end well for me that ended it fairly quickly. Nothing good ever comes of being in a room with 13 drunk people when you can't defend yourself. 13 is the correct number, Tim was pretty well wasted too. Of the 12 friends he had invited 11 of them were male. There was one female I didn't remember ever having met before there as well._

_Now, up to this point, I had been verbally, physically, and emotionally abused, but never sexually. Not that Tim and I hadn't slept together, but it had been early enough on that it had been consensual, insofar as I could consent to anything while not realizing I was partially brainwashed already. It was only after that, actually, that he had started getting so jealous whenever I would talk to, or look at, another guy. Very possessive, even by my over-protective, jealous possessive standards. That changed rather quickly after Tim's friends arrived that evening. They knew what he had been doing to me, it was all one grand joke to them, and knew ahead of time that no matter how drunk they were, there wasn't a chance in hell I could fight them off. They could do whatever they wanted; there was really nothing I could do about it._

_Which is where the part of the lyrics about 'close your eyes/sometimes it helps' comes into play. Being gang-raped by 12 people when you don't have the strength to stand, much less defend yourself, there's really not a lot else you can do but try to block it out as best you can. Close your eyes, focus on something else in the room, anything to distract yourself away from what's being done to you. I actually tried closing my eyes, but Tim noticed and ordered me to open them again. I listened and obeyed, of course. What else could I do? So I focused on the only thing in the room I could see that wouldn't give away the fact that I wasn't looking at whoever was raping me at the time- the utterly ridiculous lava lamp that Tim insisted be kept on top of the dresser, which I could see clearly from the bed. So I watched the damn lava lamp and tried to ignore the taunts, pain, humiliation, and the fact that the only female present was watching it happen and touching herself, clearly enjoying the show. I learned later that her name was Amy and she had been Tim's girlfriend since middle school. She had encouraged him in all of this, enjoying hearing stories of the new torments he was putting me through as he implemented them. She never touched me directly, choosing instead to get maximum enjoyment out of rubbing it in that Tim had been hers all along._

_Well before then, I had lost all track of time. I didn't know what month it was, much less what day it was. So it had never occurred to me to question why Tim was around the apartment so much all of sudden. He had said something vague about it being a holiday break, Thanksgiving, I think, and I was disoriented enough not to think anything of it, just accepting the explanation at face value. What had actually happened was he had been expelled for publicly beating and raping another of our classmates. Amy apparently had been directly involved in that one. I talked to the guy later, while we were both trying to recover from it all. But that wouldn't be for a while yet._

_Once Tim and his friends had had their fun, they picked up and left. All of them. I'm pretty sure I had been crying at some point in all that, though it blurred together enough that I don't remember exactly. I know I did when I finally came to enough to realize that Tim had abandoned me there like that. I don't know why, after everything that had happened, including the fact that he'd been seeing Amy, his true lover, the entire time, it hurt so much that he left that way. But it did. Final insult added to already extensive injury I guess. In any case, it was several days, during which I was unconscious more often than not, before someone from apartment next to ours wondered why he hadn't seen anyone coming or going from our apartment in a while and decided to check in and see if everything was alright. And that's how I eventually met both Mitch and Holland, who I would lose touch with for a time and reconnect with later on. It was Holland that found me, dirty, bruised, beaten, starved, feverish, bloody, completely delusional mess that I was at the time. Mitch was his roommate. Dex went to a different school, though he and Mitch had gone to high school together. I would eventually meet him as well. So we were told later, it was extremely lucky for me that Holland found me when he did. All things considered, if I had been left that way for another day or so it would have killed me. I was mostly dead as it was._

_Healing from the physical damage took quite a while, but that was nothing compared to how long it took the mental and emotional damage to even begin to heal. Some of it still hasn't, it would seem. I've never been able to trust anyone quite that completely since then. I bounced my way through one night stands until I eventually got married to Nancy. After the divorce, I returned to my Kirk-like habit of allowing one night stands only, no emotional attachments. I promised myself, once I was decently back on my feet again, that I would never let anyone have that much control over me ever again. I would never let myself get that close, that dependent on any one person like that._

_You commented once, fairly early on, that I seemed unusually reluctant, almost like I was afraid of something. I think you were teasing at the time, mostly, in keeping with the common theory that the Kirking was due to commitment issues. Not completely wrong, though the reason was a little more complicated than just fear of commitment. More so, it was fear born of the fact that the only other time I'd ever truly fallen for anyone it just about killed me, physically, and came as close as anything ever has to completely breaking me, mentally or emotionally. After that, I had a newfound understanding of exactly what it meant to feel like your heart had been ripped out, fed through a blender, and force fed back to you. And remember the feeling clearly enough to know I won't survive going through that again. Everything, instinct and logic based on observation, points to it being ridiculous to worry about that, that you would never do something like that to anyone. And I do believe that. But that doesn't necessarily stop the little voice in the back of my mind from reminding me in painful detail what happened the last time I completely opened up to someone, how much that hurt._

_Well, now you know the absolute worst of it. The practical part of me says that by this point, you're probably disgusted enough to never want to speak to me again, which I suppose is fair. Despite that, and for what it's worth, just know that I love you, and I'm sorry. But it was going to happen eventually, proof of why I'll never be good enough for you, angel._

John turned off his iPod, which he didn't remember turning on, and taking a shaky breath as he flipped the notebook shut. It was only then that he realized he was crying. _It's done now, get over it. Damn it, Sheppard, you knew this was coming. You were going to have to tell him sometime. May as well be now, before you get any further tangled up than you already are, _he scolded himself, angrily swiping the back of his hand across his face, wiping the tears away.

He hadn't quite managed to compose himself completely when he noticed Carson was watching him. John realized he had absolutely no idea how long the Scot had been standing there. But it was enough, as fragile as he was feeling right now, to bring John to tears again, suddenly terrified that Carson somehow already knew and he was going to be left again. He bit his lip, trying to keep the tears at bay. All that actually accomplished was making his lip bleed on top of everything else. Before he could say anything, try to explain, Carson was just there, holding him as he broke down and sobbed, stroking his hair, talking to him softly. Eventually John fell asleep, too exhausted, emotionally and physically, to fight it anymore. Once he was sure John was really asleep, Carson gently untangled himself from the pilot, settling John back against the pillow and setting the notebook and iPod back on the table. While he was admittedly both curious and more than slightly worried about what John had been writing about this time, to prompt such a reaction, reading could wait until later.


	9. Facing demons

**Rating: **M

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Spoilers**: None that are coming to mind...

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it. Same goes for 'Army of Darkness'.

A/N: Thanks to all who have reviewed! And particular thanks to **Alys5 **for pointing out a few mistakes (I am not by any means an expert on the health care system in the UK). Hopefully I have those fixed now...if not, let me know. I do try to keep these things as accurate as I know how. If I had cookies, I would give them to you. Sadly, I am cookie-less...sorry. However, please press the lovely review button and tell me what you think so far. :) Comments/questions/ corrections/constructive criticism are always appreciated! All right, enough from me. On with the story!

* * *

It was several days later, in fact, before Carson got a chance to read whatever it was that had upset John so much. In that same time John was deemed to have progressed far enough through physical therapy to be released back to his quarters and relative privacy that he'd been missing so much over couple of weeks since he'd woken up. While he was aware of why he was getting sympathetic looks from the nurses and particularly from his teammates, it really wasn't helping his state of mind at all. He wished the current situation were reversed, as a matter of fact. That his team would act like everything was as normal as life on Atlantis ever got and that Carson would finally give him some clue as to what was going to happen next.

Of course, what he didn't know was that Carson had been all but actively avoiding reading the journal this time around, as he was about equal parts curious about what was written and afraid to find out. However, everything was quiet once more; though they never had figured out why the alarm that started all of this had malfunctioned. If asked Rodney muttered something about faulty 10,000 year old wiring and refused to answer any further. Which, if you knew him, you knew meant he didn't know why it happened and was avoiding actually saying so. Radek wasn't being terribly helpful on that point either, as it happened. Carson had long since decided to stop asking, if they figured it out the whole city would know in nothing flat, if not, well, he had other things to worry about right now. Namely trying to keep John from overdoing trying to hurry his recovery along and hurting himself. At the moment, John had recently returned from the run he had insisted he had to take to keep himself from going insane, arguing that the route he was planning on taking wasn't even a quarter of the routine he usually kept, so it would be fine. Carson had finally agreed to it, if only because keeping John confined to his quarters was becoming as taxing on Carson's sanity as it was on the pilot's, mostly just having to trust that John knew his own limits and would know enough to head back before completely exhausting himself. Mission accomplished, John was presently out cold sprawled across his bed in an untidy mess of crisscrossing limbs. How he could manage to actually sleep that way was beyond Carson, but he somehow did so.

So, with his patient/boyfriend currently asleep, paperwork already long since caught up, and still not having been cleared to return to active duty himself, Carson realized he had officially run out of excuses to avoid reading whatever the last journal entry was. With a heavy sigh and trying to calm unreasonably rattled nerves, he retrieved the notebook from where it had been returned to its customary place on the desk. _Bloody hell, relax ye daft bugger. For the love of all that's holy, it's a journal. It's not like it's going to bite you. This isn't _Army of Darkness, _and that's not the bloody Necronomicon. Breathe, for God's sake. _

Carson continued to berate himself along these lines for another few moments, though still couldn't bring himself to actually open the notebook, much less read anything. While it was all fine and well to say it was just a journal and so forth, the fact was he had never seen anything upset John as badly as this last journal entry had, and that scared him. Even taking into account that, based on the only partly coherent comments John had made before fully returning to consciousness, Carson had a fair ballpark guess what this was going to be about didn't help to settle his nerves at all. Seeing John frightened and upset had that effect on them all. While logically John was human as the rest of them and thus felt such things same as anyone else, he never showed it, so it was all too easy to forget that. John was like that with pain as well, Carson reflected. Enough so that Rodney had started setting up a translation system between the pain levels John would admit to and what that would be to anyone else. Basing the system on the observation that by the time John would admit something hurt, most people would either be screaming or have fainted some time ago. It was hard to tell if it was forced stoicism that led to that being so, or if John's pain tolerance really was just that high. Carson had the feeling it was the latter, which was sad of itself, that John had been exposed to high levels of pain often enough over time to build that kind of tolerance to it.

Realizing he was still stalling and that if he was going to read this, it was probably better to do so while John was still asleep, Carson settled into the chair closest to the bed and started to read.

For an entry that was actually only 7 pages long, it took a very long time to work through it. Partly because it was obvious that John's hand had started to shake while writing parts of it, making the handwriting a bit harder to read, but mostly because of what he had written. It was a lot to take in all at once like this. After finishing reading, Carson was sure of two things: that if he ever had occasion to get his hands on Tim, the bastard was a dead man, Hippocratic Oath notwithstanding, and that he needed to get John straightened out about this whole 'not being good enough' idea and quickly. Beyond that, his emotions were too stirred up to know much else. _First things first, I am going to get it through his thick skull that I'm not going anywhere if it kills me. Though this does explain a lot about his stubbornness in refusing to believe that. Not so much being stubborn as afraid. All things considered, not really a surprising reaction. Survival instinct: if you do something once and it hurts, don't do it again. _

Caught up in this train of thought Carson failed to notice two things: that he was crying and had been for a while at that point and that John was awake and watching him. He finally noticed about the same time as his thoughts turned back to Tim and all the painful, untraceable ways to kill him if he ever got the chance, a thought process that apparently showed in his expression as John made a sound that was somewhere between a yelp and a whimper and moved away quickly enough he just about fell off the bed. Automatically, Carson stepped towards him, jumping slightly when the notebook fell to the floor; he'd momentarily forgotten it was still sitting in his lap. This was evidently the exact wrong thing to do right then, since he stepped forward, John went further backwards and did fall off the bed this time.

When John didn't get back up immediately, Carson truly started to worry. He had just started to move very carefully around the end of the bed, just to see if John was alright, when John abruptly reappeared with his .45 in his hand. Carson came to the equally abrupt realization that there is really nothing scarier than a terrified, panicking, professionally trained soldier with a loaded gun. At least at the moment John couldn't seem to make up his mind who or what his target was going to be. That was something, maybe. It seemed to be more for general defensive purposes than anything right now.

"Easy, John. It's alright. Just breathe for a minute, it's okay. I'm not going to hurt you," Carson had stopped moving by this point, being very careful to keep his hands where John could see them. Now was not the time to risk spooking the pilot any further then he already was.

"You're angry. I knew you would be. Finally see what they saw before. That it's fun for a while, but I'm really not worth the trouble," John nodded to himself, as if verifying his own assessment. Suddenly he seemed to come to a decision, pointing the gun at the notebook on the floor. "Never should have done it. This has all been one big joke for you, hasn't it? Watching this, finally getting a good look at just how screwed up I really am. That's what you wanted to see, right? To see just how warped, how broken, I truly am?" John's voice broke on the last part of that as tears threatened.

"No, John, that's not what this is. And yes, I'm angry, but not at you. I had no idea anything like this was going to come up. I wouldn't have asked you to go along with this if I had. I knew you had more demons to contend with then most, but I was thinking in terms of military assignments, Afghanistan, for example. While really the point was to find the root cause behind the apparent death wish, yes, it was never meant to be anything as malicious as what you're thinking." Carson took a deep breath, fighting back tears of his own. "John, look at me," he waited until he was sure he had John's full attention before continuing, "it's going to be alright, love. It'll take time, certainly, but healing from anything does. In the immediate, how about putting the gun down?"

John tensed, holding on to the .45 a little tighter, using it as a security blanket of sorts. "No, need to destroy that thing first. Then we'll see," he stated turning his attention back to the notebook.

"Is that really necessary John?" Carson asked quietly.

"Yes. Too many people know already: you, Heightmeyer, probably Elizabeth by now. Can't risk letting anyone else see it," John was calmer now, almost scarily so.

"Actually, no," Carson replied, keeping his voice soft.

"No, what? You mean there are more that know about the damn thing?" John snapped, swinging the gun back around in Carson's general direction, though not actually aimed at him yet.

"No, I mean you're overestimating. As of right now, I'm the only one who's seen it." At John's confused look, Carson elaborated, "Kate and I talked about it while you were still mostly out of it, almost a month ago now. She decided that she promised you a week to get started with it before she looked at it and that week was interrupted by unforeseen circumstances. So she would wait and look at it after you had actually had the full week she promised, counting the about 3 days you had it before all hell broke loose and restarting the count once you were feeling better. Since she hasn't read it yet, and whether or not anything in it needs to be brought to Elizabeth's attention is her call, not mine, Elizabeth hasn't seen it yet either."

"No one else?" John asked, eyeing him warily, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"No. We agreed when you started with the notebook that Kate and I would be the only ones to see it, unless it became necessary to bring it to Elizabeth's attention. Which means your team hasn't seen it either. How much they do see of it, if they ever do, is up to you. After all that's gone on recently, some explanation for the not entirely coherent outbursts is going to be necessary, but you knew that already. Rodney in particular isn't going to let it go that easily, even if Teyla and Ronon do. Not out of any wish to torment you with it, but because after listening to parts of nightmares for almost three weeks, they're understandably worried about you," Carson explained being rather blunt about it because it was all information John knew already if he thought about it. Besides which, John had always preferred to have as much information as possible, minus most if not all of the usual sugar-coating. Carson knew that and for the most part went along with it.

John watched him for a moment longer, looked back over at the notebook, and finally put the gun back tucked under the bed, where he apparently kept it. _That explains how he came up with it so fast,_ Carson thought, only slightly disturbed by the thought that John kept a gun under the bed. Better than keeping it under the pillows. Gun safely put away again, John collapsed as much as sat down on the bed, looking tired and still a bit nervous. "Still doesn't answer something though," John said almost too quietly for Carson to hear.

"What? Hm. This persistent idea of yours that you're 'not good enough for me'?" Carson shook his head. "Why do you say that John? The idea has come up before, though I've never quite understood where it came from."

John looked at him like he'd suddenly gone completely daft. "Why? It isn't obvious? I am essentially worthless. Expendable, completely interchangeable. There is nothing I do here that can't be covered by about a dozen other soldiers, starting with Major Lorne, who would take command without me here anyway. I'm not all that especially bright, strange knack for mathematics aside. At best I'm useful as a plaything temporarily, or as generalized cannon fodder. Whichever happens to be necessary at the time. It's not exactly unreasonable to conclude you can do much, much better than this. Novel idea, start with being in a relationship you don't have to hide all the time. Just a thought. In short, I'm more trouble than I'm worth."

Carson just looked at him for a moment, once again taken aback by the matter-of-fact way John talked about himself like that. The tone he was using he could have been talking about the weather. "John- I don't even know where to start. There are so many problems with what you just said, I honestly don't know where to begin. Though after reading some of what you've written, I'm starting to understand where you've gotten such ideas from. And being career military probably hasn't helped, particularly with this daft idea you've gotten that you're expendable," Carson stopped, taking a deep breath. Now was not the time to launch in to a rant on his problems with military protocols and procedures and the psychological side-effects they had. "Just focusing for the moment on the assertion that I can do better than this. I don't believe it, honestly, but just for argument's sake. Your theory is built on a couple of faulty assumptions: one, that you really are as bad as you've been taught to believe that you are, and two, that, even if it is possible, I want someone else."

"I'm finding it much harder to think of a reason why you wouldn't," John answered, falling into taking this apart logically. "Especially now that you know what I let happen before. Just how stupid do you have to be to let someone do that to you?"

Carson shook his head. "It's not your fault, John. What happened with Tim, what happened with your father even, is not your fault. You pointed out yourself, things with your father were actually slightly better than what happened with Tim, if only because your father didn't play games with you about it. With Tim, while no one likes to admit they're a victim, that's exactly what happened. He lied, pretending to be someone he wasn't so that you would trust him, and then betrayed that trust. You had no reason to think he was anything other than who and what he said he was. He knew better, including knowing he was already seeing someone, and took advantage of the fact that what you needed more than anything was someone to talk to, to confide in. You mentioned that already yourself, he led you to believe he cared about you, listened when you needed him to, and filed the information away for use later. You can't be held responsible for believing he was who he said he was. What happened is his fault, not yours that he was twisted enough to do something like that, to take advantage of the aftermath, in a sense, of your problems with your father the way he did."

John was quiet, processing what he was being told. Logically, it made sense, that he wasn't at fault for what had happened, that he was the victim in the situation, but logic didn't automatically trump spending most of your life believing something is your fault. "But still, I let it happen. I could have run, could have done something, told someone. But I let him do it."

"Aye, in hindsight it's easy enough to see what you could have done. But from the sounds of what you wrote about it, at the time you were caught somewhere between trusting him completely and, once you started to realize something was wrong, being afraid of him, of what he was going to do next. Again, you said it yourself- he had you cut off from everyone but him. At the time, it would have looked like there was nowhere you could go, no one you could tell about it, and even if you did, that he would find you and it would just be worse than it already was. So you stayed, afraid of what seemed to be the most likely outcome of trying to get away, namely that there was nowhere you could go that he couldn't find you, nowhere that you would be safe from him, until eventually, be sheer force of repetition building on ideas your father had already put in place, you came to believe that the beatings, the insults, were what you deserved, that everything he blamed you for really was your fault, whether it made logical sense or not."

"How do you know all this?" John asked, sounding rather bewildered to have the situation broken down quite like that.

Carson paused a moment, perching on the edge of the bed a short distance from John, before answering. "Shortly after I finished my residency I worked in one of the larger teaching hospitals in Glasgow during the day and part time in an emergi-center type clinic tied to a local practice closer to home at night most of the time. That particular clinic had connections with some of the local shelters and the like. Mostly it was fairly run of the mill things, vaccinations and the like, but it also meant we saw our fair share of rehabilitating drug addicts and alcoholics usually. Less often, though sadly not entirely uncommon, we also treated domestic abuse victims, men and women. Women get most of the attention as far as that goes, and it is statistically more likely for a woman to be the victim of abuse than a man, but instances of men being abused are higher than most people think. It doesn't seem like it happens all that often, statistically, but that has more to do with the fact that men are far less likely to report it than women, even as unlikely as it can be for a woman to report abuse. However, to answer the question, I know this because I fairly quickly became one of the primary ones to handle such cases for the clinic, and over time learned that while details of what had happened differed by individual, a lot of the same factors were in place in most cases: fear, social isolation, the abuser reinforcing the idea that there was nowhere the abused could go where they would be safe, usually also fostering financial dependence to some extent as well. It sounds callous to break it down that way, but really the only way to learn to how to even begin to help a patient who is an abuse victim is to look for patterns like that, to have an idea what you're up against in general before you get into specifics. Every case is different, but at least it gives you somewhere to start."

John stayed quiet, looking thoughtful. He wasn't quite sure what to say to that, or how to explain the conflicted emotions he was feeling right then. On the one hand, he still felt as though he was somehow to blame for letting Tim do those things to him, that he was at fault even when other people weren't. On the other hand, while he would never wish such a thing on anyone, it was comforting to know that he wasn't the only one that it had happened to. He'd always felt like he was and had been too ashamed to check into it and see if his really was an isolated case. After a long moment, still not knowing what to say, he wordlessly scooted closer, curling into Carson's side, letting that speak for him for now.


	10. Now everyone knows

**Rating: **M

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Spoilers**: None that are coming to mind...

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it.

A/N: Not much to say except that this is shaping up to be an exceptionally busy week, so updates may be slightly delayed. Hopefully I will be able to get them out in time. :) Thanks as always for the reviews, and please feel free to tell me what you think of the story so far.

* * *

Over the next couple of days John finished majority of his physical therapy and was cleared back to light duty post clearing both the standard physical and an abbreviated psych evaluation. Abbreviated because one of the first things he did was explain that he had already written out an explanation of the source of the nightmares and so forth, so it wasn't really an issue now. Dr. Heightmeyer accepted this, simply reminding him that he had two days before she wanted to see the notebook, as per the original plan. Other than that, he was free to resume life as normal as far as she was concerned.

_Now comes the fun part, _John thought as he was leaving Dr. Heightmeyer's office. _Now I have to figure out how to explain all this to my team without completely losing what command I have over them. Tenuous enough as it is, considering two of them are technically representatives of our alien allies, and McKay is civilian, as he's fond of reminding me. _This situation had alternately amused and frustrated John for a while now, the fact that he really had no chain of command given authority over his team. It worked because they let it work, not because he could really force the issue. _Though I'd love to see someone actually try to order Ronon to do anything he didn't want to do. I just don't see that ending well. _Shaking his head to bring himself back to the actual matter at hand, he decided to go with the first plan that had come to mind once he'd acknowledged that he did have to tell them something by way of an explanation. Carson was right, as usual, they were just worried about him and he owed them something after what they had been subjected to listening to.

About an hour later John had the rest of his team gathered out on a balcony, not the one attached to his quarters, but his favorite one, higher up the central tower. You could just about see the entire city from there, which was why he liked it.

Taking a quick check to make sure they were all there- he was stalling again, it wasn't hard to check for three people- he took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he was sure was going to be an interesting meeting. "So, you're probably wondering why I dragged you all out here, away from whatever it was you were doing." _When did I start opening meetings almost McKay style? Need to watch that, _John thought, realizing it was really just his nerves getting to him. Without waiting for a response, he continued, "That's actually kinda simple. For the moment, I need you all to read this." This got confused looks from Teyla and Ronon and the beginnings of a protest from McKay. John held up a hand, cutting off any comments. "For, oh, a few weeks now, you all have known, or should have known, that some kind of explanation would be forthcoming about the nightmares and such awhile back. For reasons I'm not going to explain right now, I chose to write out the explanation, rather than rely on being able to explain it in person. I suck at that kind of thing, you all know that, this really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. I know, it's kind of an odd request, but for the moment just…humor me, okay? It'll make more sense after you look at it, why I would rather do it this way. I'm not expecting there not to be any more questions about what happened and so forth, and I'll deal with those later. Promise. Alright?" John knew he was just short of begging here, but if they wanted an explanation, this was the way it was going to have to be.

"That is fine, John. However you would rather handle this," Teyla said at last, answering for all of them.

"Alright then. Cool," John answered, reminding himself to breathe and handing them each copy of what amounted to a type-written story. What it was was a heavily edited version of what Carson had read and that Heightmeyer would read in another day or two. Mostly just editing out the parts that had been almost entirely directed at Carson, on the idea that his team really didn't need to know those parts just now; what they had was enough to give them the story of what had happened.

While the rest of the team was reading John returned to staring out over the city, wondering at the changes in himself since he'd come to Atlantis, that he would even consider doing something like this. It still wasn't easy, but doing it this way was easier than trying to verbally explain the entire story without breaking down. It was, he figured, roughly the same thing, doing it this way. It was still telling the story in his own words, since he'd been the one to write it, but it saved them all the awkwardness of his not being able to find the words for what he wanted to say on the spot. While editing what he had given his teammates, John had also decided not to edit for the references to otherwise being required to keep a journal. If they wanted to ask about it, at this point he was okay with that. Or just too tired to argue right now, he couldn't quite decide which.

The others finished reading at about the same time, almost 15 minutes later, which for reading an almost six page long account like that, was actually making pretty good time. John hadn't actually been watching them, but figured they had all finished up when he stopped hearing pages rustling behind him. The awkward silence stretched on for several minutes before John finally looked around at the team who had become his family and said simply, "Any further questions?"

There was silence for another moment or two before McKay, never one to be silenced for very long, asked, "You're keeping a journal, Sheppard? Since when?"

John couldn't help but laugh at that, of all the possible questions to come from this, Rodney decided to start with that one. "Yes, and for either about a week or close on a month, depending on how you want to look at it. I started a few days before this most recent infirmary stay, and got interrupted for several weeks by being unconscious and stuff. And before you ask, yes, it is required. You really think I would keep a journal if I didn't have to?"

"No, that's why I was asking about it," Rodney answered, rolling his eyes and making it clear he thought John should have known that already, making John laugh harder.

Ronon was staying quiet, as was usual for the former Runner, just taking in the antics of his teammates. Teyla listened to John and Rodney banter for a bit, simply glad to hear John laugh again. If it was still slightly hysterical sounding, she wasn't going to be the one to point it out. Once the general antics had settled down somewhat, Teyla moved across the balcony to where John was standing, resting her hands on his shoulders and bowing her head slightly. After a second, John echoed her movements, touching his forehead to hers in the traditional Athosian almost ritual sequence that seemed to cover greeting, farewell, apology, acceptance, and respect all in one. It had always amazed John how multi-purpose it was. After a moment Teyla looked back up at her friend and teammate. "Thank you for telling us this, John." She started to say more and thought better of it, leaving it at that.

John shrugged. "I owed you all, if not an apology, per se, for the nightmares and general ranting, than an explanation at least. Cheap, perhaps, to do it in writing like this, but…," he trailed off for a moment, gathering his thoughts before continuing, "oh, and this is going to sound even stranger, but can I have those back?" he drawled in as close to nonchalant manner as he could, indicating the copies he had given them. "Call it paranoid, but I'd rather hang on to them, if you don't mind."

"Reasonable. Here," Ronon said, handing the papers back to John.

"Short on words as ever, Chewie. You okay with all this?" John was honestly curious about the Runner's answer.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be? Not going to change anything, is it?" Ronon asked simply.

"No, no it won't change anything. Whatever effect it was going to have, it already has. Only difference is now you all have at least a partial explanation for some of the things I've always done," John answered after a moment.

"Okay then. What's the problem?" Ronon stated more than asked.

"No problem, just curious," John replied falling back into his usual easy grin. "Well, that was a lot shorter than I expected it to be. I was planning on leaving for lunch after this, but it's a little early for that. Ideas?"

"If you're quite done, I need to get back to my lab before one of the idiots finds a new way to blow us all to hell," Rodney snarked, likewise retreating to a more comfortable routine.

John chuckled. "You do that McKay. Heaven forbid you're away from the lab for more than an hour at a time," he answered, voice not quite dripping with sarcasm.

Teyla shook her head, rolling her eyes at the continued antics of all of the men. Leave it to the males of the species to allow the situation to devolve to snarking and sniping at each other. Though there was something to be said for the normalcy of it. "How about some exercise before lunch? Not sparring, you have not been cleared for that yet John," she qualified quickly before John could protest.

John sighed. "Fine, no sparring yet, but exercise sounds good. I've been cooped up for too long recently. I need to start getting back into the swing of things, the sooner the better. Ronon?"

The former Runner shook his head. "Promised Keller I'd help move some of the crates from the last supply shipment this morning."

"'kay. Have fun with that," John said with a shrug.

With that, the team dispersed to their various destinations. It seemed to John that all at once nothing had changed and everything had. Hopefully, the change would turn out to be for the better.


	11. Why

A/N: Not a lot to say this time, except thanks for the reviews! There are only 5 more chapters after this, so it will be wrapping up fairly soon if I can stay on track. Back to the story!

* * *

The end of the week arrived, the day John actually had to give Heightmeyer the notebook to review what he had done so far. He had until the end of the day to get it to her, which was just as well since there was one more thing he wanted to cover before she saw it.

_Okay, I suppose this is the end of round one. Been a bit more informative than I had thought it would be. Believe it or not, I'm actually not done yet. I have one more thing I want to cover in this round, than have a slightly more upbeat theme in mind for round two. Unless there is serious disagreement, I don't see this going beyond round two, however. I've already mostly covered the actual purpose of this assignment._

_Oh, on that note, I also have a proposed theme song for this section of the assignment. "Why" by Rascal Flatts. Ignoring the fact that the song itself deals with someone wondering why someone they knew actually did commit suicide, the general idea of the song fits pretty well. The general purpose of this journal, too. To determine why someone (in this case it happens to be me) would kill, or want to kill, themselves. What kind of situation existed to prompt that?_

_"Why/ That's what I keep askin'/ was there anything/ I could have said or done/ oh, I had no clue you were maskin'/ a troubled soul/ God only knows/ what went wrong/ and why you would leave the stage in the middle/ of a song."_

_Just found it kind of fitting. That's the chorus to the song, by the way. There's more that could apply, but I'll let you listen to it and decide at some other point._

_In a kind of answer to the question, I've also decided on a tentative theme song for me through most of the events mentioned in this section: Papercut by Linkin Park. In particular, these lines stick out in my head._

_"I know I got a face in me/points out all the mistakes to me/you got a face on the inside too/your paranoia's probably worse/I don't know what set me off first/but I know what I can't stand/everybody acts like the fact of the matter is I can't add up to what you can/but everybody has a face that they hold inside/face that awakes when I close my eyes/face that watches every time they lie/ face that laughs every time they fall/it watches everything/so you don't doubt/ when it's time to sink or swim/the face inside is watching you too/ right inside your skin"_

_Dark, but so, largely, was my life at the time. I still have a distinct liking for Linkin Park, actually. It's not Johnny Cash, but for some situations it actually works better._

_But, on to the actual point of this entry: the only real dark spot in my past that I haven't covered in some detail yet. Onward to tackle the hellhole experience that is my time in Afghanistan. I've touched on it before, by way of talking about Holland. Everyone has their own idea of what life in either Afghanistan or Iraq is like. Even among those who have been there the interpretation differs. It depends what you were doing while you were there, how long you were there, that kind of thing._

_Mine interpretation, put to music, works better once again split into two songs, rather than trying to sum everything up into one. One is "Disposable Heroes" by Metallica. The other that jumps out at me right now, is "What I've Done", again a Linkin Park song._

_The idea behind Disposable Heroes is exactly what it sounds like. The brass using, within the lyrics, enlisted men as completely expendable cannon fodder._

_"Soldier boy/ made of clay/ now an empty shell/ 21/ only son/ but he served us well/ bred to kill/ not to care/ do just as we day/ finished here/ greeting Death/ he's yours to take away/ back to the front/you will do/what I say/when I say/ back to the front/you will die/when I say/ you must die/ back to the front/ you coward/ you servant/ you blind man/ back to the front."_

_Gives you the general gist of the song. Ok, but I'm an officer, not enlisted, so what does that have to do with me and my interpretation of Afghanistan? Not all commanders restrict themselves to using the enlisted as cannon fodder. Some are willing to use junior officers as well. More expensive to replace, with the additional training, but as long as the mission is kept within 'acceptable losses' than it's okay. These are typically the same commanders who actually do expect blind obedience from those who serve under them, apparently forgetting there was a clause in the agreement to follow the orders of those place above you in the chain of command that specifically referred to following 'lawful' orders. Mine wasn't so bad with the illegal/unlawful orders, really, so much as he was prone to seeing everything in terms of bottom line numbers. The men meant nothing to him as people, only in terms of available fighting strength, how many were sick or injured, casualty rates. Nothing but a list of serial numbers to be kept track of. When one died, someone had to remember to take their number off the list, that was all._

_Thus began my problems with the man. I can understand not wanting to get too personally attached to those under your command when you're somewhere with as high a death rate as Afghanistan had and still has. But that doesn't mean you completely disregard the fact that they are living, breathing human beings, not machines or interchangeable parts that can be replaced at will as needed. I may have mentioned before that my commander thought I was trying to undermine his authority. It probably seemed that way, given some of what I did and the fact that I was one of the higher ranking junior officers present. Mostly what I was doing was what he should have been doing: keeping an eye on morale levels, making sure no one was so close to their breaking point that they were in any real danger of snapping, or if they were, see to it that they were taken off the duty roster for a while and given time away from the front lines if not rotated back State-side. He either didn't understand or chose to ignore the psychological effects of long-term exposure to combat stress._

_This was my understanding of the situation prior to Holland going down behind enemy lines. Honestly, I never really expected my commander to okay a rescue mission. I had to ask, for formality sake, but wasn't surprised when he not only didn't approve it, but ordered me not to go. On the one hand, I can see his reasoning for it. He'd already lost one helicopter and its entire flight crew, and really didn't want to risk losing another one. Which is why I amended my request to being more than willing to fly solo on that particular mission, that way, the only one in any real danger from it was me. I could handle the chopper by myself, I'd done it before on multiple occasions. Something he apparently didn't know, as he took this as both insolence and arrogance, to suggest that I could fly the mission alone._

_Long story short, since I never really expected him to agree to it, I already knew I was going to be in for at least mild insubordination charges for going anyway. I wasn't expecting the direct order not to go, however. Didn't change anything, just meant I stood to be in more trouble than originally anticipated. Unfortunately, the amount of trouble I was in also increased due to my occasionally terrible control of my temper. Something about directly being ordered to leave a good friend of mine alone behind enemy lines coming up on dark in the desert just didn't sit well with me I guess. Enough so that I lost it and told my commander exactly what I thought of him and what he could do with his orders. Which became the primary basis for the later charges of insubordination and conduct unbecoming an officer._

_But that was just one instance of his general disregard for the lives of the men and women under his command. It also, ironically enough, provides a large part of the basis for my own command style. Learning from him mistakes, as it were, or at least, from what he did that always annoyed the hell out of me. One of those 'note to self: don't ever do that' kind of things._

_Alright, enough on that. You get the basic idea: as far as I could tell, my commander was an asshole. The second half of this, "What I've Done", is more oriented to a survivor's guilt, learning to come to terms with that which you cannot change kind of thing._

_"So let mercy come/ and wash away/ what I've done/ I'll face myself/ to cross out what I've become/ erase myself/ and let go of/ what I've done."_

_That, really, was the end result of my time in Afghanistan. That was really what I wanted, once it was all said and done, some way to erase what I'd done, who I had become. Unfortunately, in some ways, the fact that this built on the experiences that had come before, 'mercy' more directly translated to 'death'. Losing Holland and summarily being abandoned by the Air Force to rot in Antarctica for having the nerve to put human lives ahead of regulations and orders was the last step to hitting rock bottom. I was completely alone, as everyone I had ever really cared about up until that point had either died or abandoned me. Maybe in some cases abandoned is a little strong a word, but it felt like it. It's a very strange feeling, knowing that you could die tomorrow and no one would care. There's a freedom to it as well, but it makes seeking death very easy, knowing that you won't be missed. That it doesn't matter what you do or don't do, no one cares enough to really keep track._

_Before you get any ideas about taking me back off active duty, this is strictly past tense. I've had a few years to get used to the idea that I'm not alone anymore. I have to be reminded sometimes, but I am aware that I have a home and a family now, just to clarify. But, more on that to come in round two. I'm not about to give you everything in one week-long shot at this. What fun would that be?_

Nodding to himself, John closed the notebook and headed out to Dr. Heightmeyer's office to drop it off for the first round of review. He wasn't done yet, but he felt that the worst was over now, even though he would still had yet to fully face his time in Afghanistan.


	12. In the interest of fairness

The review process turned out not to be as painful as John had feared. It took Dr. Heightmeyer a few days to read and analyze it all, which was expected as it was around 15 pages long and amounted to the most detailed account of his past as currently existed. At least the most detailed with regards to the particular parts of his past mentioned, his service record also served as a fairly detailed account, just from a different angle. He had kept trying to tell himself that it was silly to worry about the review, everything recorded in the journal was essentially pre-existing in terms of his time on Atlantis, but he couldn't help but wonder if this might actually tip things far enough to get him that nice white padded room somewhere he'd so often been threatened with along with a discharge on the grounds of either being mentally and emotionally unstable, or simply as a danger to himself and others. Despite the fact that everyone who currently knew anything that was written in the damn thing had taken it well, or as well as could be expected, the fact remained that he'd just turned over a detailed account of most all of his darkest secrets to the resident shrink. While he didn't hold anything against Heightmeyer as a person, the idea of her having that kind of information in a professional capacity still scared him.

Still, at least he didn't have to worry about the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' angle anymore. Among other things he had had to catch up on since returning to the land of the fully conscious and coherent were the new rule changes to be implemented for the expedition. He and Elizabeth had been talking about the need for there to be some kind of standardized set of rules that could be applied regardless of nationality or professional division, rather than the kind of mish-mash set of rules pulled from here and there as needed that they had been using up until this point, for quite a while now. The preliminary stages of the process had taken place starting several months back, getting through the initial explanation of why such changes were necessary and introducing the first round of proposed rule changes to the expedition as a whole, as well as gathering ideas for other possible rule changes/additions/deletions/etc.

That much he had been aware of prior to his most recent injury and extended recovery time. Evidently the process had continued while he had been otherwise occupied. This was a good thing, but it did mean that he needed to catch up on what the finalized list of rules actually included. Most of them hadn't changed from the last time he'd seen it, except for two additions: proposed rule change repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' with regards to the military contingent on Atlantis as well as officially relaxing a couple of other fraternization regs that weren't all that strictly enforced anyway, and a kind of corollary rule allowing for recognition of gay and lesbian marriages along with straight marriages on Atlantis, essentially promising protection from repercussions from Earth for those who came out under the new rules. Both of these proposed rules were new to John, though he had mentioned to Elizabeth in passing that he wouldn't be opposed to making such changes.

Ironically, that conversation had pre-dated his relationship with Carson by almost a year. Rather, it had been prompted by his noticing the looks passing between some of his men and mentioned in the interest of making their lives easier. As far as he was concerned, real happiness was a rare enough thing in Pegasus without regulations getting in the way. If encouraging the expedition in general to make the most of what happiness they could find in the midst of it all meant pulling an end-run around a few of Earth's more questionable regulations, then so be it. However, in the interest of keeping the voting and such as fair as possible, he and Elizabeth had decided not to include the possibility in the first round of proposals, opting instead to let the idea come from elsewhere within the expedition if it was going to come up at all. To encourage the putting forth of possibly unpopular changes, all responses to current proposals and additional suggestions were e-mailed directly to both John and Elizabeth, who went over the results and compiled the next listing to be sent out to the general populace, never mentioning who had proposed what change. They knew, of course, since the e-mail addresses for the mainframe system were a fairly generic first initial and last name format, but they were the only ones who did. Evidently, the list he was looking at now was the final voted on set of rules to be implemented just as soon as he signed off and got the list back to Elizabeth. He quickly did so, thankful that at least that much was easily taken care of. Now if only his personal affairs would work out as nicely.

As it happened, he really needn't have worried. Once she finished reading over everything and making what notes she was going to for her records she called John in for what was actually a short meeting, mostly to see if he had anything in particular he wanted to talk about. She had readily admitted she didn't really expect him to say much, which surprised him, though he did appreciate the honesty. Mostly they had talked about John's apparent wish to continue with the project, at least for a while longer. Kate had admitted to being surprised, if pleasantly so, by that but as it was essentially a form of patient-led therapy, if he wanted to continue than they would continue, and that as far as she could see, there was no reason why he couldn't return to full active duty as soon as he was cleared physically. This was the best news John had heard in a while, and he'd told her so.

Returning to his quarters after the session/meeting, John idly started to flip through what he had written already, quickly giving more attention to it once he realized that Dr. Heightmeyer had in fact left written notes and questions for him in addition to the few she had had when he talked to her earlier. Most of the comments were pretty general, either answering questions he'd asked within the entries themselves or giving more technical explanations and suggestions for dealing with certain things, such as survivor's guilt and the remaining tendency to hold himself at fault for what had happened with Tim. She had also emphasized that the latter points were suggestions only, not an attempt to push him in to anything. That was reassuring, though he wasn't quite sure why she had felt it necessary to explain herself to him.

There was one note in particular, however, that grabbed his attention. _Leave it to the marriage counselor to key in on that,_ John thought as he read over both the note and what he had written initially. _Of all the things I was kind of expecting her to comment on, the idea that I'm being maybe a touch harsh on my ex-wife was not one that came to mind immediately. Guess it really should have, all things considered. _After a few more minutes of re-reading what he had written, as well as thinking over the situation as a whole somewhat more objectively, something he was becoming more adept at as this project went on, he came to the conclusion that he was being more than a bit unfair in his earlier assessment.

_And we're back for round two it would seem. Hopefully, this round won't take as long as the first, but there are a few more things I want to touch on before ending this project. Wow, that sounded more like the opening for a lecture than anything. Hm, not quite sure why it came out that way, but whatever._

_First thing, I suppose, is to address something that was brought up in the review notes of the last round: that perhaps I was hasty in my judgment of my ex-wife. Which is fair, really, as I'm coming to realize just how much I was letting general bitterness and cynicism color the telling of that part of the story. In light of that, the music for this one is slightly different from before. This is not so much from my point of view as what is arguably a more accurate account of hers._

_"Where'd You Go?" by Fort Minor featuring Holly Brook and Jonah Matranga._

_I'm not saying my earlier impressions were entirely wrong. When Nancy and I got married, I was still fairly messed up otherwise, though she didn't know it, and it was honestly doomed from the start. It was an attempt at normalcy on a number of fronts, and it is really hard to tell just who was trying to fix who for the most part. She knew I was broken but not how or why, so tried to fix what she saw to be the problem: mostly stress on both of us stemming from my having to be away from home so much on missions I couldn't tell her about due to security clearance issues._

_"Where'd you go/I miss you so/seems like it's been forever/that you've been gone/She said some days I feel like shit/some days I wanna quit/ and just be normal for a bit/I don't understand why you have to always be gone/I get along/ but the trips always feel so long/and I find myself tryin' to stay by the phone/ 'cause your voice always helps me/ and I feel so alone/but I feel like an idiot/working my day around the call/ but when I pick up/ I don't have much to say/so I want you to know that it's a little fucked up/ that I'm stuck here waitin'/at times debatin'/ tellin' you that I've had it/ with you and your career/ me and the rest of the family here/ singin' where'd you go"_

_In retrospect, I can see how that would be an accurate summary of what life was like for her. I couldn't see, or refused to see, it at the time. If in part her connection to me was a way for her to get to my father and his connections, then at the same time I was using her as a way to escape, to separate myself from who I had been, in some senses from who I still was._

_Ok, that sounded a bit cryptic, I'll admit. To clarify, my relationship, if you could call it that, with Tim was the only time I had ever been in an even remotely romantic relationship with another guy. I'd dated before then, yes, but I had always dated women before then. The whole situation with Tim served as my introduction to the fact that I was indeed bisexual, something I had kind of guessed at but had never really tried to verify. Whether this was out of generalized, socially induced embarrassment or a rather strange attempt at trying to please my father by ignoring the possibility that I was anything other than straight, I don't honestly know. Probably a little of both, really. But whatever the reason, after the catastrophe that was the entire episode with Tim, I was more determined than ever to deny, to myself as much as anyone, that I was anything other than straight. Getting involved with Nancy served this purpose beautifully well. It worked, or seemed to work, well enough for long enough that I could convince myself and everyone else that I really was straight, at least for a while._

_Which brings me back to my more than slightly unfair assessment of the situation from before. To be perfectly honest, while I don't believe that she was truly blameless in how the whole thing came apart, she was in part using me as a way to gain access to my father's connections (that fact that he loved her as much as he hated me helped a lot with that), it was largely my fault. The entire thing was a lie from the start, and if I had been being honest with myself and with her, I never would have let it get as far as it did. I knew I was in denial and lying to myself as well as her and that that couldn't possibly last for long. As I mentioned, I'm bisexual, not strictly gay, but since recovering for the most part from events during my time with Tim, I had come to realize that I was generally more attracted to men than women. I could go either way, I'd done so before, but given any real choice in the matter… But at the time I also had it stuck in my head that allowing myself to act on that was dangerous in more ways than one. By that point, I was not only building off of general social disapproval of such relationships, but the all-too-clear memory of what had happened the only time I had ignored that disapproval, and eventually had to work around 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' on top of it all. Essentially, I was already pretty firmly in denial and regulations made it easy to rationalize remaining so. So through my entire relationship with Nancy I was lying through my teeth to both myself and her. Small wonder that relationship didn't work out._

_So in the end, the official reasons given for the divorce ran to irreconcilable differences on paper, and explained away as she was fed up with the fact that I apparently loved my job more than her, that I must or I wouldn't agree so readily to take off to God-knew-where at a moment's notice. Which was true, to a point, but left out that somewhere along the line she had worked out my true preferences for herself and was well aware of both how much I had been lying to her the entire time and of the signs that I wasn't going to be able to continue living a lie like that for much longer. Finally, it was decided to be less painful on both of us to cut our losses and file for divorce, no sense in dragging out the inevitable. What I said before was also true, she was never meant to be a military spouse, she hated that lifestyle as much as I hated the social elite lifestyle we had grown up in, but that, as you see, was only part of the story._

Sighing heavily, John closed the notebook. He had needed to set that straight anyway, and the note from Heightmeyer had given him a perfect reason to do so. Now he could move on to happier things, starting with the dinner that was almost certainly going to become an impromptu celebration for many after the finalized rule changes were posted. Smiling at the thought, he wandered off to find his boyfriend.


	13. Jump Then Fall

**Title: **Jump Then Fall

**Rating: **M

**Pairings: **John Sheppard/Carson Beckett (BeckShep) **slash - **yes, again, it is slash, if you don't like it, don't read it. You have been warned.

**Spoilers**: None that are coming to mind...

**Disclaimer: **I do not in any way, shape, or form own the characters, concepts, or anything else related to Stargate: Atlantis that may be copyrighted or otherwise previously owned. Those belong to Gekko and MGM and all those other people who actually make money from it.

A/N: Thank you all for your patience with this story so far. Only three more chapters after this to finish up. It's been a few chapters since I asked (read begged) for reviews, so I shall do so now- if you would all be so kind as to push the lovely button at the bottom of the page there and tell me what you think. I do love hearing from you all. Thanks so much!

* * *

It was no surprise, really, that John woke up the next morning with a mild hangover. The finalized rules had been announced and posted just before dinner, so it had indeed become more of a party of sorts for a lot of the city than it had been an actual meal. Accordingly, there had been a rather large selection of alcohol involved. He quickly decided that not having to worry about getting caught out more than offset for any inconvenience this morning. It would be nice for both of them, he decided, to be able to shift from their relationship being the biggest open secret in the city to simply being openly together. Not a huge difference, in a lot of ways, since majority of the city knew about them already, but the rule changes meant they didn't have to return to hiding any time Caldwell was around either. _Still wouldn't be the brightest idea to rub it in his face, as much fun as that might be,_ John mused, trying to find the energy to untangle himself from Carson, who was still asleep, and actually get up. It took several minutes, but the hangover induced headache finally got to be annoying enough that he had to do something about it, which meant at least getting as far as the bathroom and the medicine cabinet. And if he was going to get that far, he may as well just get up.

A couple to Tylenol and a hot shower later, John was feeling slightly more human and decidedly more awake. _Now what to do? No work today and Carson's not up yet, _John paused, looking over at the clock. _And that explains why- it's only 0530. Why am I even up? Oh well. _Only a skeleton staff had to work today, as it had been declared a general day off in light of the celebrations- read widespread drinking- of the night before. The work on the rules wasn't completely done yet, there were still some issues left that would need to be settled, but it was a good start in any event.

Among other things that had been discussed last night had been a lengthy debate on whether or not some of the rules needed to be re-worded, already, in light of the fact that nothing was specifically included regarding treatment of transgendered and transsexual personnel. It was something John at least hadn't given much thought to, as he wasn't aware of anyone on the expedition that that would apply to and generally gave about as much weight to that as to issues sexual preference: as long as it didn't interfere with personnel doing their jobs, he failed to see how it was anywhere in his job description to tell his people what they could and couldn't do and who they could and couldn't do it with on their own time, or how he could justify judging them for being who they were without being ridiculously hypocritical about it. He'd spent enough of his life either hiding who he was or in denial about it to know how ultimately painful it was to feel like you had to do so. But that didn't mean that everyone saw it that way and, as with many things, it was best to deal with getting any corrections and additions to wording dealt with quickly, before any problems did come up, in any case. It was something he intended to talk to Elizabeth about more later in the day. She wouldn't be up yet anyhow.

Setting the thought aside for the moment, as there was nothing he could do with it until Elizabeth was awake anyway, John returned to the issue of what he was going to do until then. As seemed to be becoming a habit of late, his attention returned to the notebook on the desk. For something he had been so paranoid about other people seeing, it was rather ironic that it had taken up residence out in the open like that. _Odd, but there's a reason I've been called a walking contradiction before. Multiple times. But to be so paranoid about anyone getting a hold of it without my knowing it and then leave it casually sitting on the desk like that is highly contradictory, even for me. There's probably some complicated subconscious reason for doing that, I'm sure. Not so sure I care what it is, however, _John thought as he settled down on the couch to write this time, managing to be lazy even while doing something mildly productive.

_Why does it seem like I either write really early in the morning, or right around meal times? Coincidence of having the free time available to do so around then, I guess._

_Anyway, I wasn't going to get into this until later, but in light of recent events it seems fitting to do it now. It does completely mess with the kind of chronological thing I had going before though. Jumping really far ahead from the last entry to about the last couple of years; I'll go back and fill in some of what I'm skipping over later. It's an upbeat kind of day, really, and I just feel like this should match. To that end, I'm going to try and do this and not completely sound like a teenager with a crush, despite still feeling like it some days._

_Song of the day: Jump Then Fall by Taylor Swift._

_I know, first thought is probably something like 'what the hell is the military commander doing listening to Taylor Swift, gay or not?' It does seem a bit out of left field, I'll admit, and I don't normally. There are just a few songs I like particularly well. This one and 'White Horse', really, are the only ones I typically listen to. But, in any case, and defense of my choices in music aside, though I do still expect to get crap for this if it ever gets out to the general populace, right now I really don't care. I probably will later on, but that can wait for another day. Ok, I already fail at not sounding like a teenager. I suppose that was kind of a hopeless cause, all things considered. Who knew you could actually sound giddy in writing? Yet somehow I'm managing to do so. Decidedly glad Carson is asleep while I'm doing this, I really don't want to have to explain why I'm blushing as much as I'm sure I am right now. What is it about love that makes one act like an idiot? I would seriously pay to know that. Ok, attempting to regain some kind of focus here. No promises about that._

_"I like the way I can't keep my focus/I watch you talk/ you didn't notice/I hear the words/ but all I can think is/ we should be together/ every time you smile/ I smile/ and every time you shine/ I'll shine for you"._

_Dear God, but that is incredibly sappy. There's no hope for that. Just to make the general sappiness worse, it's also true. It was about the point I realized it was true that I kind of had to admit just what a hopeless case I was. Rather hard not to when you realize that you're only half listening to what's being said due to being completely distracted just watching someone talk. It's just that much harder to focus when your crush has about the sexiest accent known to man. You'll just have to trust me on that one. It has made focusing through senior staff meetings interesting some days. It's generally known I have trouble sitting still and concentrating through a meeting anyway, but trying to sit still and concentrate through a meeting when your crush is sitting maybe three feet away, if that, can be ridiculously difficult. There were a number of occasions where picking on McKay was a distraction away from being completely distracted, as little sense as that makes. At least the distraction was kind of on topic then. And kept my mind from wandering off into places I really didn't need it to be going in the middle of a meeting. Around the time you start watching someone's hands and contemplating all manner of other things those hands could be doing, preferably to you, it's about time to find something to distract yourself with. Completely aside from the fact that the dimples should be considered a weapon in their own right- extremely unfair advantage, by the way._

_Anyway…wow… yeah, this entire thing is going to be about like that. Just fair warning, this is about as extreme a sap factor as there is likely to be._

_"I've never been so wrapped up/ honey I like the way/ you're everything I ever wanted/ I had time to think it over/ and all I can say is come closer/ take a deep breath and/ jump then fall in to me"_

_That is, of itself, a pretty accurate description. It's part of why I like the song so much, because while that's true, we both know I'd never be able to say anything like that without help from somewhere. I'd get far too tongue tied and end up with my foot down my throat in no time. I'm having enough trouble writing this as it is. Romantic poetic I'm not, though hopefully by now you're used to that. I do, however, stand by my assertion that I don't deserve you, and I don't know why you put up with me. I never have and probably never will. Extraordinarily grateful for it, but don't understand it. Then again, I do call you angel for a reason. Though I think the first time might have been morphine induced, I really don't remember. First time I said it out loud, not the first time I'd thought that. Okay, moving on before I dig myself in any deeper… know when to put the shovel down, John. : P_

_"Don't be afraid to/ jump then fall/ jump then fall in to me/be there/ baby, never gonna leave you/ say that/ you wanna be with me too/'cause I'm gonna stay through it all/ so jump then fall/ the bottom's gonna drop/ out from under our feet/ I'll catch you/ I'll catch you/ when people say things/ that bring you to your knees/ I'll catch you/ the time is gonna come when you're so mad you could cry/ but I'll hold you through the night/ until you smile"_

_This shifts perspective a bit. While perfectly true from my end of things, this sounds remarkably like something you told me not all that long ago. I believe it, too, it confuses the living daylights out of me, why you would do that for me, but I know you would and have. It took some getting used to, knowing that. It still strikes me as strange and almost unsettling, in a way, that anyone would go out of their way for me like that. Probably has a lot to do with the number of times it's happened that someone being nice to me has turned into just waiting for the other shoe to drop, to find out what they expect in return, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before they wouldn't be there anymore. I'd forgotten how to trust, if in fact I ever really knew. In either case, I'm learning now. It's amazing, really, how much easier it is to deal with things, with life, knowing you've got someone there to catch you when you fall. That you don't have to try and make it alone anymore. It's an idea I'm still adjusting to, honestly. I'm not used to it, and lose sight of it sometimes, and I'm sorry. It's a fairly major shift in outlook to think that anyone actually cares what happens to me. I know it's true, now, but old habits die hard. I've gone a long time being able to generally rely on the fact that what happens to me is of no real consequence to anyone. I'm more than a bit too used to the idea and will likely continue to fall back in to it for a while. I may never shake it completely, for that matter. I realize it's a situation that would try the patience of a saint, which is why I find it so mindboggling that you would voluntarily deal with it. *sigh* It's going to keep coming back to that, at least for the foreseeable future._

_Well, that twisted to be darker than I had intended, though I suppose it did need to be said. On the bright side, aforementioned problems notwithstanding, we do have at least fewer problems to contend with. That's going to take some getting used to as well, this idea of actually being able to be openly together. But that, at least, is a happier adjustment to have to make. Such a relief, not to have to worry about getting caught. I suspect there will be further discussion of the ramifications of this change coming in the near future, but I'm not about to open that can of worms here. ; )_

Around the time John was finishing up what he was writing and putting everything away again, Carson woke up just enough to realize John had gotten up and to make his displeasure with this situation known in no uncertain terms. Laughing softly, John decided there was no harm in going back to bed for a while. It was a holiday of sorts, after all. Everything else could wait until later in the day.


	14. Gifts and Curses

A/N: Thank you all very much for the reviews! I love hearing what you all think of my little story. :) On a related note, I know some of the songs I use seem a bit off. I have actually thought about changing some of them (chapter 8 in particular), but have not found another song or songs that fit as well and might make more sense for Shep. So I am throwing it open to you, dear readers, if you have any suggestions for other songs that might fit better, I would love to hear them. Thanks!

* * *

It was all in all a very lazy day, for a change- nothing exploded, no attacks with the exception of the rubber band war that started up between a few of the scientists and Marines. John wasn't sure he even wanted to know how that got started, but there was no serious damage, human or otherwise, so all involved were released with a warning this time. Mid-afternoon found the dysfunctional family in the rec room, where most were watching Rodney get his ass kicked at foosball, by Carson, strangely enough. Little known talent, along with walking on his hands, the Scot rocked at foosball. No one knew quite why that was, but by this point only Rodney was generally cocky enough to challenge him and still expect to win. Even John wasn't that overconfident, then again, he'd been the one to discover this odd side talent of his boyfriend's. Turned out he could sing, too, but John was pretty sure he was the only one that knew that, and that Carson wasn't yet aware that he knew.

Shaking his head, he finally had to look away from the match that was quickly becoming more of a massacre than a match, John let the sounds of continuing chaos wash over him as he focused on the notebook he pulled out of his pocket. _Bless BDU pockets, there's almost no limit to what you can stuff in them, _John mused as he settled where he could both write and keep half an eye on the ongoing slaughter of a foosball game. He really wasn't worried about writing where the others could see him; they knew he was keeping a journal under orders from Dr. Heightmeyer for the moment and that he had a tendency to write whenever the mood struck him, just about. What he didn't have at the moment was his iPod, though he could mostly recall the song he wanted for this entry from memory, so that wasn't a huge problem.

_Well, I should just about be winding this down now. I don't know that I'm better, per se, but it's a start, I'll admit. There are still a few things I need to tackle, but some of those are better done in person, rather than in writing, and I think I can handle that now. (Apologies for the handwriting being worse than normal, I'm watching Rodney try to teach Ronon and Teyla to play foosball by getting his ass kicked at it. Honestly, you would think he'd know better than to challenge Carson by now. I suppose the genius will learn one day. Until then it's fun to watch, even if he does whine a bit when he loses. So do I over some things…just not that. I know better than to think I can beat Carson at that. :) Not shameless ego flattery in the slightest…nope…of course not. *lol* Well, it isn't entirely, I do know better, but still…_

_I think it's safe to say I have about the strangest, most dysfunctional family in two galaxies. I love 'em, but you've got to admit, we do make for a rather odd group if you think about it too hard. And yet, somehow it works out. I long since gave up guessing why, and I'm not sure it matters. Family…it's odd to think that I have one now. Never really have before…At least I do if one defines family as a group of people you would willingly die to protect one minute, and threaten to kill them yourself the next. As endearing as they are infuriating. Or maybe that's just a side effect of my being the oldest._

_But that brings me to the song for this episode: 'Gifts and Curses' by Yellowcard. (You'll have to forgive any misquoting on the lyrics this go round, I'm doing this without my iPod at the moment. )_

_"I see your face with every punch I take/and every bone I break/ it's all for you/ and my worst pains/are words I cannot say/ but still I will always/ fight on for you"_

_Yes, the song is on the Spider-man 2 soundtrack and in that is meant more as Spidey/ Peter reflecting on his relationship, or lack thereof in some ways, with Mary Jane. But most of the songs I've used so far have been taken out of context, so why would this one be different? It is in light of this, however, that I am choosing to stick with the chorus for this. Because if I'm being honest, and I'm having an increasing tendency to be while doing this, that is why I fight, why I haven't given up already. Yes, I took an oath to lay down my life for the mission, for the expedition. True, and I will if need be. That was actually an incredibly easy oath to take, at the time, as it was finding a reason to live that was hard. Dying didn't bother me so much, really. That usually seems to be the way it goes though- dying isn't the hard part, holding on to some reason to fight to survive, to live, that's hard._

_Dying can be nothing more than simply giving up, it doesn't have to be anything especially spectacular. The hardest, really, is finding the will to fight when you're right on the edge of death, generally around the time your heart has already stopped, or is just about to, and the easiest thing in the world would be to let go, just stop fighting and let the darkness take you. So the theory goes, that can be one reason for losing patients in surgery or shortly thereafter who shouldn't have died- they're tired, it hurts too much, and they just give up, give in, and stop fighting. I've seen it happen before, I've almost given in to it myself a number of times. Drowning, hypothermia, concussions and blood loss, I've found, are among the hardest to fight against. You get so tired, being awake hurts like hell, and the darkness is almost too inviting to pass up. You start fading and find that the pain starts to go away, that you can make the pain stop, all you have to do is give in and fall asleep. Far easier than fighting to stay awake through the fatigue and the pain, even when you know that if you fall asleep you will likely never wake up again. Question then is, do you even care if you wake up again? If not, than it just got a whole lot easier to let it be over._

_I've flirted with the idea before, but for some reason, be it stubbornness or something else, I've never quite been able to completely let go. So I've been told I have a bad tendency to push that 5 minute limit the docs have to get a patient's heart re-started after it stops before there is almost certainly brain damage of some degree. I think Jennifer told me once the closest call to date was 4 minutes 45 seconds out of 5. Pushin' it really tight to come back that time, apparently._

_It's gotten easier though, to find the will, stubborn or otherwise, to fight to live. I still have plenty of misguided moments where I decide that the best way to protect my family, my home, is to die in their place. Last time I did that, I got an earful from Carson for it shortly after I woke up, and then my team laid into me simultaneously, and then Elizabeth got a hold of me. After sitting through 5 variants on the same lecture, I kind of got the point it wasn't the brightest idea I'd ever had. What got me really strange looks, however, was the fact Atlantis waited until I was back on my feet again to make it known that she wasn't pleased with me either. Mostly I remember feeling fairly punch-drunk after it was all over. I've gotten chewed out before, on numerous occasions, for a variety of transgressions, but this was different somehow. It finally dawned on me later why it was different: generally I've gotten lectured like that because someone was pissed at me for something or other. That wasn't what this was, really, they weren't happy with me, certainly, that was clear enough, but it took me a while to realize that it was less anger based and more due to having just scared them all rather badly. Something I do seem to be singularly good at. It's not unlike when most people get grounded as kids, you get upset about it at the time, but eventually you realize it only happened because your parents cared enough to punish you for whatever it was you did. Which might explain why I never got grounded, but it is a kind of counter-intuitive idea, that someone would yell at you, punish you, because they care about you. Mostly it just takes growing up to realize that there was at least supposed to be an object lesson in the punishment; that makes it make a little more sense. But somewhere in realizing that, as it applied to my situation in particular, I finally, truly started to realize I wasn't alone anymore. I'd known my own priorities had shifted from simply using the oath to lay down my life for the expedition as a convenient way to pursue a pre-existing death wish to somehow managing to work it so that I could still pursue that, but orient it towards fighting for something in particular while I was doing it. Namely, fighting to protect my team, who had at some point become my family, and my home, before I fully realized I had one. It started with being mostly confined to my teammates, but over actually a fairly short time expanded to become the family I have now. With allowances made for the fact that Carson and I weren't dating yet, but still. That came later. : )_

_Argh, but I've kind of wandered all over the place this time. Some of these have been worse with that than others. For better or for worse, however, there are only a couple more things I want to address this way. And again, a couple more I intend to address outside of this, but that's a different issue. Anyway, it's my turn to get my ass kicked at foosball. More on this later._

With that, John shoved notebook and pen back into the pocket he'd had them stashed in before and rejoined his family in the present, starting with getting his ass kicked at foosball by his boyfriend. Life was good.


	15. Bring Me to Life

A/N: Just so you all know, there is only one more chapter after this. Thank you all for sticking with me through this, hopefully you enjoyed it. :)

* * *

The next day it was back to life as usual, or usual by Atlantis standards, anyway. John was fairly sure Atlantis was the only place in two galaxies where work jokingly referred to as human light switch duty could be considered normal. But that was what he had been doing all morning, using the ATA gene to activate this and that bit of Ancient tech for the science department. Mostly for McKay, as per usual, but for some of the other scientists as well. Usually this didn't bother John, using the gene came easily to him and it was amusing to watch Rodney fume at some of the bits of tech that John could activate and he couldn't.

Apparently, there was a difference in the ease in using the gene based on whether you came by it naturally or were given it via the gene therapy. Which still didn't explain why John had such an easier time with it than Carson, but he had a running theory about that as well, having to do with there being an emotional component to using at least some of the technology. It was the best way he could think of to explain the differences in reactions by the same piece of tech to the two of them, to base it on the fact that doing such things still scared Carson, whereas it didn't bother him at all. But that was all beside the point at the moment.

The point right now, at least to John's mind, was the attempt to keep from strangling McKay if he made one more crack about him being Atlantis' favored son. Or the Atlantean Swiss Army Knife, as the case may be. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized he couldn't fully explain his connection to the Lost City either. It had just kind of happened, starting almost as soon as he had set foot in the city for the first time. She had become this almost constant presence in the back of his mind. Sometimes she would talk to him, show him things, mostly it was just this not quite hum in his head. What he did know was that he didn't like the idea of being separated from her, though it had come up on a couple of occasions. And if her reactions to some of his crazier stunts was anything to go by, she wasn't real fond of the idea of losing him either.

Lost in thought, he hadn't noticed that he was back in his quarters. _Walking on autopilot again, this can't be good. Not that she'd let me get lost, but I really should actually pay attention to where I'm going, _John thought, slightly exasperated with himself for zoning out that way. Clearing away the thought, John realized he needed to do something to try and pull together some kind of organized explanation about how he saw his connection to Atlantis. Problem was, doing so without sounding completely crazy…which gave him an idea. _I'm not quite done with the journal yet anyway, and if I really am going crazy, who better to pinpoint it then the resident shrink? _Truthfully, he had been intending to make some kind of explanation about it anyway, at least concerning the repeated references to Atlantis as home. Settling down with the notebook and his iPod in a nearby arm chair, and wondering idly why he kept switching which piece of furniture he sprawled on to write, John opened the notebook once again, searching through songs with a bit more purpose this time, as he already had one in mind that he thought would work for this.

_Ok, this is probably going to read even more like I'm thinking out loud than usual. Mostly because I'm still working out the details myself on this one, but I figure I need to at least try to make sense of it, since the subject keeps coming up. Since we came to Atlantis, I have been called her favored son, the 'Lantean Swiss Army Knife, and even a couple of time been accused of having a love affair with the city. I'm not even sure how that last one would even work…and really don't care to. In particular, I've been told a couple of times that she needs me. I'm not sure that is so much true as it would be to say that I need her and she responds to that. I've already painted a fairly graphic picture of life leading up to coming to Atlantis, so I won't go back over it now._

_The primary thing of importance from that is my mental state when I got here: lost and alone with abandonment issues and a death wish. I still can't describe it, really, what it felt like when I came through the 'Gate to Atlantis the first time. The closest I can come is to say that it felt like coming home, like she had been waiting for me. Which I suppose sounds a bit silly when you consider that 'she' is a 10,000 + year old city in an alien galaxy. I'm kind of at a loss at how to explain, since before then I couldn't have told you what coming home felt like- I'd never really had one. I had houses where I stayed in-between missions and the like. Someplace to crash for a while and glorified storage space other than that. Atlantis was different, I could tell that right away. Even before she started turning the lights on for me and such there was this not quite audible click somewhere in the back of my mind, like a connection snapping in to place. A connection that exists most of the time as a kind of hum inside my head that I've learned typically means that everything is okay, running normally. If there's a problem, she'll let me know. Which, by the way, is part of the reason I've had more headaches since coming to Atlantis than at any other point in my life: a lot of times that's how she gets my attention, by making my head hurt. Nothing serious, just enough I have to pay attention to it._

_Strange as it sounds, that connection has probably saved me more than once. My connection to Atlantis was already mostly in place before I really started building connections to the people here and it served as a kind of start point to eventually getting to where I am now. She almost immediately gave me something I'd never had before, a place I belonged. That's something else I've been called on a couple of occasions- the soul of Atlantis. I'm not sure I believe it, but it's a nice thought._

_Ok, my thoughts are getting scattered again. Time to apply music to it, see if that helps._

_'Bring Me To Life' by Evanescence_

_"How can you see into my eyes/ like open doors/ leading you down into my core/ where I've become so numb/ without a soul/ my spirit sleeping somewhere cold/ until you find it there/ and lead it back/ home/ wake me up/ wake me up inside/ I can't wake up/ wake me up inside/ save me/ call my name and save me from the dark/wake me up/bid my blood to run/ I can't wake up/ before I come undone/save me/save me from the nothing I've become"._

_The nearest I can come to applying that to what it felt like for me, coming here for the first time is to simply say that that was what happened. I was sleep walking, in a sense, numb, cold, and somehow she just seemed to know how to find the spark, or soul I guess you could call it, that I'd lost, calling me. In a more obvious sense, she was waking up, looking a bit like I was calling her as much as she was calling me, that lights coming back on, systems re-activating, that kind of thing. But less visibly, she was kind of doing as the song suggests, starting to call me back from the dark places I had wandered into, giving me the beginnings, at least, of what would eventually become my reason to live._

_"All of this time/ I can't believe I couldn't see/ kept in the dark/ but you were there in front of me/ I've been sleeping a thousand years it seems/got to open my eyes to everything/without thought/without a voice/ without a soul/don't let me die here/there must be something more/ bring me to life"_

_That could almost equally apply to me or to her. To me, it almost alternates between us, which is actually kind of perfect if you actually listen to that part of the song, as it switches between Amy Lee and a guy whose name I should know and it's escaping me right now. Paul McCoy, that's his name. Anyway. Not much else to say on that part though, it's a pretty accurate description of its own._

_There are other parts of the song I could apply to other situations, but I won't go into that just now. :P This is apparently going to be one of the shorter entries this time around. Not all of them can three-four pages long. I'm not quite done though, still, so maybe the next couple will be longer._

Not really sure that there was anything else to say on the subject, really, John let the entry end there, allowing anyone who read it to come to their own conclusions about his relative sanity. Right now, he was going to content himself with playing Guitar Hero on his DS until lunchtime, just taking the time to relax and unwind.


	16. Vindicated

A/N: Ok, last chapter. At least, so far as I know. Depending on if any of the songs do change/ others get added, it may lead to chapters being added/revised later. :) Particular thanks to **Beaker Bait **for the song recommendations. Thank you all so much for sticking with this and for all of the reviews! It never fails to brighten my day to hear from you all. :) Thanks again!

* * *

Nothing much of note happened for several days, which for Atlantis was notable in its own right. Taking advantage of the quiet to actually get a little further into _War and Peace_, John almost didn't realize that the second deadline on the journal was just about up. If he was going to wrap it up before Dr. Heightmeyer saw it the next time, he was going to have to do it soon. Today, in fact, as it was due back to her no later than tomorrow morning, and he was leaving for a mission then. _Crap. How did I let that sneak up on me? I need to finish this thing off, and do it in such a way that I don't have to another round with it. But how…_ John wondered, contemplating the fact that he still had a couple of issues that needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later; among them actually tackling his time in Afghanistan head on, something he was still avoiding doing. Up until now, he had either been avoiding the topic altogether, or after the whole having make explanations about Tim thing, had decided it was better to let any possible fallout from that die down first, before taking on another highly traumatic experience. Besides, unlike dealing with explaining about Tim, that was something he kind of wanted to tackle in person, rather than by way of the journal.

With a sigh, and settling on to yet a different piece of furniture, the actual bench out on the balcony this time, in keeping with his habit to find a different piece to sprawl on to write each time, John opened the notebook to the next blank page and stared out at the ocean while he let his iPod run, trying to figure out how he was going to handle this.

Conveniently enough for that train of thought, one of the first songs to come up was 'Solitary Man'. It was song he had always liked, even beyond just his general fondness for Johnny Cash, in part because he could apply different sections to almost too many parts of his life. Though he had found a particular liking for it after his divorce from Nancy, which he supposed was to be expected. But it did give him an idea where to start.

_Okay, hopefully this is the last entry. Kind of a bittersweet thing, really, which is a kind of feeling to get about a project I'm still not sure I even like. But like it or not, I will admit it has helped. Kindly keep the 'I told you so's to a minimum about that._

_In any event, in keeping with the way round one ended, I suppose I need to come up with a theme, or themes, or something, for this section. Which is actually proving to be harder this time, and I don't know why. Easier to start with the personal side of things I guess. I'll deal with trying to pinpoint a theme for the section as a whole in a minute. Well, easier in a relative sense, I guess, as I'm actually thinking of several that work together in an almost sequential kind of fashion._

_'Solitary Man' by Johnny Cash_

_You knew it had to come up eventually; this is me, after all. I can't possibly do this entire thing and not bring Cash in to it. :) But seriously¸ this one is kind of fitting to the mindset of a lot of my life. Well, the chorus is, anyway, the rest is a bit relationship specific, mostly in terms of being cheated on. Which has its applications within my past, but not the point that's not the point at the moment. _

_"Don't know that I will/ but until/ love can find me/ and the girl who'll stay/ and won't play games behind me/ I'll be what I am/ a solitary man." _

_Ok, so it's not an exact fit, but there is some artistic interpretation necessary in any such thing. It's not like I wrote it or anything. But that was, in part, where I was to begin with, somewhere between being simply disillusioned with relationships and completely giving up on them, and more or less resigned to the idea that I was on my own and was going to remain that way. It's as close a summary as I can think of, for the moment. _

_'Scars' by Papa Roach_

_This serves as a kind of intermediate step, in a sense. There are going to be three songs altogether, just so you know. Kind of a past, present, future idea, really. With that in mind, this would be the present theme, kind of a summary of where I am at the moment. _

_"I tear my heart open/ I sew myself shut/ and my weakness is/ that I care too much/and our scars remind us/ that the past is real/ I tear my heart open/ just to feel" _

_It sounds kind of dark and rather lost, I'll admit, but that fits. It's that feeling of fighting to live again after having been hurt, after it's been long enough for the injuries to have become scars and for it to be time to move on. The thing is, sometimes caring too much is just as much a problem as not caring at all. Finding the balance between the two can be a trick of its own. That is kind of what this is helping me to do, to finally bring some kind of closure to some of the more painful things that came before, as well as putting current circumstances in to perspective. _

_'Vindicated' by Dashboard Confessional_

_And following the pattern mentioned before, this would be the future piece. To that end, the title explains a lot. I'm not quite there yet, but maybe with a bit more time I will get there. _

_"Hope/dangles on a string/like slow spinning redemption/winding in/ and winding out/ the shine of it/ has caught my eye/ and roped me in/ so mesmerizing /so hypnotizing/ I am captivated/ I am/ vindicated/ I am selfish/ I am wrong/ I am right/ I swear I'm right/ swear I knew it all along/and I am flawed/ but I am cleaning up so well/ I am seeing in me now/ the things you swore you saw yourself" _

_It's that hope that I'm hanging on to now, that shiny possibility of redemption. It's there, I know it is, and perhaps one day I'll get there. But not yet, I have a few more things I need to face before I can get there. Just, as I've said, not here. I'll handle it, but not like this. This works for some things, but what I have left to explain is best done in person, as much for my own sake as anyone's. _

_Alright, moving on to finding a theme or more for this section as a whole- I'm finding that I again am having to break it down into parts. Fewer parts this time, but still, it's not so easily summed up into one song to cover both the section itself, and to kind of wrap up this project as well. _

_'Broken' by Seether with Amy Lee_

_"The worst is over now/ and we can breathe again/ I wanna hold you high/ you steal my pain away/ there's so much left to learn/ and no one left to fight/ I wanna hold you high/ and steal your pain/ 'cause I'm broken/ when I'm open/ and I don't feel like/ I am strong enough/ 'cause I'm broken/ when I'm lonesome/ and I don't feel right/ when you're gone away" _

_And that's where this section started: that I was broken had already been established, as was the fact that I wasn't dealing with it well on my own. But there's also a kind of hope to it, that while I'm broken at the moment, there is the possibility that I can still be fixed, I just can't do it alone. Which is where the entries in this section come in, largely, highlighting the fact that I'm not alone anymore. _

_'Believe in Me' by Emily White_

_I haven't had this song very long at this point, so I'm still learning the lyrics and things, but I've found that the chorus sticks in your head very quickly. Or maybe it just did in mine because I find it fitting. Either way, it's a fitting sentiment for this._

_"I know I can do this/a little bit more/ I know I can fight it/ down to the floor/ if you/ would only/ believe in me"_

_That sums up where I've gotten to with this project, as a kind of conclusion. I know I can fight this, now that I've actually sat down and figured out what the real problems are, but I'm going to need help. That's always been true, it's just that I am what I am: a proud, stubborn, Type A personality. It's not just that I don't like to ask for help, usually it's that I won't do so. But it has become clear to me that if I am going to make it through this and really move on completely, I'm going to have to get over that. It's not going to be easy, any of it, but it's looking like the only way. _

_There, just a few final thoughts before I call an end to this. Something that has been running theme throughout all of this, the issue of perceptions, both my perceptions of things and other people's perceptions of me. I've covered a lot of that already, my father's perceptions of me, my ex-wife's view of life in and around our marriage, appearances that I've always tried to keep up for one reason or another. But there's a major one I've only touched on in passing: the all looks and no brains, flirty overgrown child that I appear to be sometimes. I actually have a perfect song for that, too. _

_'What's My Age Again?' by Blink-182_

_"And that's about the time that she broke up with me/ no one should take themselves so seriously/ with many years ahead to fall in line/ why would you wish that on me/I'm never gonna act my age/what's my age again/ what's my age again?" _

_It's interesting the numerous things you can hide behind an act like that. As long as those around you take you for an overgrown child, no one asks much of you or really expects much. Incredibly useful if you're, say, trying to hide a death wish among other mental and emotional issues, wouldn't you say? People either get disgusted and leave you alone as being too immature to be worth dealing with, or flirt back and try and get in your pants. Either way, no one really tries to get too close to you, as you quite obviously haven't got a brain in your head, but rather are just pretty to look at. And that's fine, if that's what you want people to think anyway. The fewer questions I had to answer, generally the happier I was, so I let most people keep right on thinking like that. _

_And it's not all bad, really, there is merit in not taking yourself too seriously. Life does tend to be less stressful, not to mention more fun, if you're willing to relax, take chances, and make mistakes. As long as you can do it without stressing over much about it, you might just find you can learn something new, even from the mistakes. But if you're continually surrounded by people who seemingly have sticks up their asses, that kind of approach to life tends to be frowned on, to say the least. My family is like that, my former in-laws were like that, and the military is full of people like that. So I quickly built a reputation for being a flirt and immature and other things that are both too numerous to mention and not terribly polite anyway, mostly because that was the perception of those around me who typically wouldn't know what relaxation and fun were if they bit them. (Okay, the fact that I have a rather odd sense of humor really didn't help with that, but still.) It's just always been interesting to me how the same set of actions can be taken in so many different ways by different people. Kind of dangerous, if you think about it, what with humans being the social creatures that they are, and the fact that one's perception of one's self is largely built from the way others see you. I happen to be a drastic case of how dangerous that can be to someone's health, to be ruled too much by what other people think of you. _

_Well, I think that about does it, and just in time, too. Time to turn this in for the last round of review and see what comes after that, though I don't intend to do any more with this. _

It was both a relief and kind of sad to finally be able to call an end to writing the journal, John decided as he closed it up and shut down his iPod, heading back inside. Leaving the pen and iPod on the desk, he ventured down to Dr. Heightmeyer's office once again to drop off the now completed journal project.

Later that evening, after dinner, the entire surrogate family was once again gathered together, just generally hanging out with nothing much to do until majority of them were to leave in the morning. Eventually, during one of those odd lulls that happen even when you have multiple conversations going on at once, John decided that this was as good a time as any to approach really the last major issue he needed to face to finish what the journal project had started.

Apparently something of that thought process must have shown in his expression, as without meaning to he already had everyone else's attention. Fighting down the urge to deflect all the sudden attention away from himself, he took a deep breath and said, "While this is maybe not the best time to do this, there's something I need to talk to you all about." At the various curious looks that got, he continued, "Among other things, about what happened in Afghanistan…"


End file.
